Experience Matters - Grand Valley State University

My Experience with JR Automation Technologies

James-Vincent
Major: Mechanical Engineering The role I played this semester was a concept and cost development engineer. Customers submit requests for quotations (RFQs) and we are responsible for providing a solution and costs. Projects involved degating machines, automated assembly systems, welding and pressing applications, and clip driving machines.

Engineering co-op

Caleb
Major: Mechanical Engineering I was able to program, start up, debug, prove out, and service the machines that were made. I was held responsible for creating programs for automated robots to help assemble customer parts. Additionally, I worked to ensure that the machines worked properly and that all input and output communication was correct.

Vention Medical Internship

Kori
Major: Mechanical Engineering The project that I was assigned to was to work with a team of engineers to build a device that attaches to and endoscopic camera which doctors can use to implant 5 running stitches in a patients digestive tract. The majority of my time was spent working on paperwork, laser welding components, and documenting testing data.

First Co-op at Cascade Engineering

Michael
Major: Mechanical Engineering As a mechanical engineering intern, I mainly helped out with testing and investigations on why certain products would malfunction or break. I also did some design work for various fixtures on molds and testing apparatus.

BISSELL: Engineering Co-op #1

Carlos
Major: Mechanical Engineering At the start of my experience here, I was tasked with running a variety of tests on a multitude of test equipment. Following this, a larger yet manageable design project was handed over to me and took quite some time to complete. General research and documentation on particular issues regarding vacuums was also done throughout my period here at BISSELL.

EGR 290 Co-Op

Jake
Major: Mechanical Engineering I was the project manager, overseeing the development of end or arm tooling for robots. I ordered parts, built CAD models, made drawings, and assembled these tools throughout the course of the summer.

Mechanical Design

Daniel
Major: Mechanical Engineering Numerous MEA (Micro Electronics Assembly) projects designing assembly fixtures used for clamping onto casted/molded parts with complex geometry thus allowing operators to complete an assembly step. Designed a new upgraded Crowder apparatus on IEC strip cutter to accommodate a new (larger) sized glass blank while also being able to still run original sizes. Researched and determined best way to detect dots dripped from a pneumatic actuated dispenser and designed a setup to hold the sensors used. Designed/built new broken glass filter apparatus with auto adjusting and dump features to prevent broken glass at the end of our annealers from reaching the exit washer where they could cause damage. In charge of Vision Cell upgrade on Bender 6. Consisted of working with and ordering parts from multiple Bill of Materials. Tracking Progress, etc.

Last Co-op

Travis
Major: Mechanical Engineering Develop and maintain assembly plans for specific tests on engine mounts. Create test requests, tool room requests, shipping and production forms, completing reports and documenting warranty and return parts, and building ,modifying, and testing engine and transmission mounts.

Semester 1 At Medallion

Fred
Major: Mechanical Engineering I worked as a Program Management Co-op, which means most of my tasks were organizational in nature with some light design work on the side. Currently my tasks include maintaining and improving the change review process used to track changes in our products. In the past I have also been involved in several projects to write performance specifications. This means that I had to get well acquainted with the minutia of a product (Electrical, Mechanical, and Software design) in order to properly specify how the product should behave. I have also been involved in creating new lines of products both by altering an existing product to new needs and creating a product from bare ideas. This involved looking over not only the technical details but the organizational details such as sales forecasts and labor planning.

Engineering Design

Ryan
Major: Mechanical Engineering I have designed machines, checked prints, interacted with customers, solved assembly issues, and updated old designs for reuse.

Computer Aided Engineering Co-op at Shape Corp.

Tyler
Major: Mechanical Engineering I worked as part of the Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) Team at Shape. Tasks included conducting simulations of various tests with finite element analysis software, applying meshes to models of bumper systems and other components for various simulations, and characterizing and validating material cards for use with different solvers. During my experience I was also able to write guidelines for setting up certain types of simulations. Many of my other projects also focused on improving correlation between physical tests and simulations. I was also able to watch many of the physical tests I had setup simulations of.

1st semester at JR Automation

Dan
Major: Mechanical Engineering I worked in quoting department, where I would develop an initial concept for a particular application. After the initial concept, I meet with a team of engineers to discuss feasibility and usually make modifications. Once everyone is cool with our strategy, I price out the components we will eventually need to build this machine and prepare a proposal for the customer.

Manufacturing Engineering at Autocam

Chris
Major: Mechanical Engineering I worked under an experienced Manufacturing and Quality Engineer who was very active in getting tasks accomplished so I was given several small projects of my own throughout the summer. I designed some part flipping trays to assist the area machinists, rearranged the tooling racks for the new tooling locations, created a hand tool shadow board for the operators, and became the area conveyor fixing guy.

Engineering Co-op

Artur
Major: Mechanical Engineering I worked with designing and improving the gating and risers for the molds for the castings. When a need for a new mold for a part arises I use CAD software to design the gating and risers to feed the castings metal.

Working at Padnos

Nathan
Major: Mechanical Engineering The biggest thing that i worked on this past semester was designing conveyors for the installation of our new Eddy Current Plant at our Grandville location. We are building 38 conveyors in-house for that plant and i was heavily involved with the detailing and production of the conveyors. I ordered all of the components, such as the gearboxes and motors, couplers, rollers, head and tail pulleys and all of the steel required to build the conveyors. I also helped design many conveyors and detail them out for the guys in the shop to build. I also helped with the installation of our DAF tank, which is used to separate oil and other contaminates from water. The current DAF needs repair so we built a new one late last summer/ early fall. I was in charge of preparing everything for installing the new tank, from designing and producing decking for around the tank to order couplers and other components for the plumbing of the tank.

Summer Concepting At JR Automation

Daniel
Major: Mechanical Engineering I was in concept and cost development, so customers would submit request for quotes telling me what they needed a machine to do and any specs they required. I would then come up with a concept of this idea, create a simplified machine in PROE software, determine the cost of the machine for both labor and materials, hold a meeting with a team of engineers to review my idea, and then write up and send a quote to the customers for the machine that was requested.

Coop Experience at UCC

Taylor
Major: Mechanical Engineering Helped plan a water system upgrade. This included calculating cooling requirements for machines, pipe sizes, flows, etc. I drafted layouts for the entire project. I modified a piece of equipment to fit the new systems need. This project was also implemented in UCCs Mexico plant, which I visited to verify calculations and drawings. Also helping in planning and designing of a new plant to be built in Georgia.

Second Co-op at Shape Corporation as a CAE Intern

Tyler
Major: Mechanical Engineering Over the semester I conducted several simulations of various tests that Shape Corporation performs on their products to verify their designs meet specific standards as an intern on the Computer Aided Engineering Team. I assisted my co-workers with projects and had my own set of projects. Some of my projects included conducting studies on a single design to determine and optimize the best design for the application, working on correlation studies to match simulations with physical studies to improve FEA modeling practices, and characterizing materials for use with FEA software.

First Year Co-op Experience at Disher Design and Development

Sean
Major: Mechanical Engineering I was involved in multiple and varied projects. These include, but are not limited to: office chair/furniture design, testing and documentation, office re-modelling (some design work was involved with this project as well), prototyping on various projects, cycle testing of products, refurbishing of a CNC mill, project management, and SolidWorks drawing and modelling.

Herman Miller Healthcare

Leighton
Major: Mechanical Engineering I was primarily involved in cost savings engineering during this semester. This involved lots of brainstorming, problem solving, and testing in order to validate new ideas. The testing was not only performed in Herman Miller's laboratories but I was asked to perform Finite Element Analysis on CAD models prior to the physical tests.

My Third Co-op Semester

Matthew
Major: Mechanical Engineering This semester I worked on a launch machine (a brand new automated machine in the building phase getting it ready to start running). I tackled multiple projects throughout the semester, designing and fabricating many components for the launch machine. I was also appointed as a Methods and Motions Divisional Leader for my division, which came with many responsibilities.

Envirotronics Test Chambers

Jeff
Major: Mechanical Engineering Produced CAD drawings, modified prints, created parts in Pro Engineer. I also ended up doing more and more work on chambers and was assigned my own chamber as well. I also worked with other engineers to design their chambers.

Design and Innovation Internship

Robert
Major: Mechanical Engineering I was first assigned to benchmark existing mirror assemblies. This included extensive testing on the mirror as well as a breakdown of the mirror to it's constituents. Then I was given other tasks including failure analysis, extensive testing for future products, design for concept products, etc.

Research Project Assistant

Joshua
Major: Mechanical Engineering I was charged with preliminary design, refinement, and documentation of a prototype mobile site for depositing goods. The task involved heavy amounts of documentation and research.

Second time around

Nick
Major: Mechanical Engineering I started the semester working in quality and returns. I tracked incoming and outgoing returns and would look at the failure mode. I had a spreadsheet that kept track of every return ever filed in our new system and could check back and find out how many times a certain model was returned and look for patterns in the failure mode. Finding these patterns eventually helped us create standards and procedures to eliminated these failure modes. The second half of the semester I was working on floor changes. These could be anywhere from adding a part to the BOM or adding a dimension to a drawing to creating a new part or modifying an existing part.