Experience Matters - Grand Valley State University

Controls Programming at Koops Automation

Charles
Major: Electrical Engineering All tasks surrounded programming Programable Logic Controllers (PLC). My entire time at Koops, the work I did was in direct support of an ongoing project. I was doing real work.

First Semester at SoundOff Signal

Grant
Major: Electrical Engineering Much of my role as a starting EE intern revolved around learning the company's process and products and assisting with tasks to alleviate some of the more time-intensive work from the product development teams. This involved assembling various prototype PCBs and harnesses, establishing and executing thermal tests to compare products with that of competitors, managing the electronics lab and its contents, and many other tasks to assist the EE team and Product Development team as a whole.

Viastore Co-Op 1st Rotation

Noah
Major: Electrical Engineering While working with Viastore I worked on two separate projects for GM. This consisted of commissioning various parts of an Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS). This involved debugging PLC code as well as installing I/O devices, connecting them via ethernet, ensuring communication, and setting conveyors speeds to meet customer specifications.

EGR 290

Logan
Major: Electrical Engineering As a co-op of the power systems group on Corteva's Midland site, I was able to learn the engineering behind powering a extremly large chemical site. The largest project I was taked with was updating meter and relay devices for 20 different feeder circuits in two of our switching stations. This invovled updating/creating 120 different electrical drawings, specifically three-line, DC diagram, and connection diagram. In addition, I used a simulation software called ETAP to simulate faults on different parts of each circuit. This allowed us to theorectical see what would happen if a fault occured on one the ciruits, and how to relay would protect the equipment potentially impacted by the fault. I was also able to order parts for this porject, create procedures to turn specific sections of the bus off. I was also, fortunate enough to manage the implementation of one of the circuits I worked on. Unfortunately, in a chemical plant my group isn't allowed to just go turning off chemical processes when we want. It could be months to years before the other circuits I worked on could be implemented. I had other smaller projects that involved other smaller updates to electrical drawings, I was also able to experience some work with PLCs.

Phase 1 is number One

john
Major: Electrical Engineering During the first few weeks, I focused heavily on soldering and modifying circuits for testing purposes. This included learning surface mount soldering for smaller components, primarily 0402 and sometimes 0603. In the subsequent weeks, I participated in building an electromagnetic emissions chamber from scratch. Following that project, I worked on creating protoboards, laying out various components to develop prototypes for multiple projects. One of my tasks included building a test box to verify that our PCBs were outputting the correct voltages under different configurations, as shown in the picture below. My most recent project involves reprogramming and testing 200 devices to troubleshoot an issue a customer has been experiencing. These devices are set to different configurations and tested under various scenarios to replicate and resolve the field issue.

Controls Engineering Co-Op at Adient

Zachary
Major: Electrical Engineering For this semester of my Co-Op, I had several projects. All of these projects were related to PLCs and HMIs. Every PLC and HMI that I worked with was Allen Bradley. One biggest projects that I worked on was updating all of the PLCs to their latest version. This helped the plant be more standardized and allowed IT to support fewer firmware versions. I also got to create screens on HMIs so that operators and maintenance could print test labels out of printers. This was important to help troubleshoot problems with printers. Finally, I also got to write my ladder logic in the PLCs. For this project, I wrote code to send messages to the HMI to display the status of the cell.

Mission Design and Automation Co-op Experience

Marcus
Major: Electrical Engineering I worked on two different projects throughout my Co-op experience that provided me with very different experiences. The first project I worked on I was able to be the sole controls engineer on the job and was able to see the project through from start to finish. This meant I was able to get the time in preliminary software's such as AutoCAD electrical working on the prints, to working on the PLC and debugging on the floor, to seeing the customer come in and be very pleased with their runoff. The second project I worked on was a much larger project where I had the pleasure to work alongside a handful of other controls engineers also on the same job. This variation in job size throughout the rotation was something I really enjoyed and am extremely glad I was able to receive.

Working in L3Harris's CAS department

Izik
Major: Electrical Engineering I learned quite a bit about the flight recorders that L3Harris makes along with some of their other product lines. I was tasked with a good mix of production issues and then improvement projects that helped the production line and test engineering department as well. The main task was updating documentation for a test station and building it from the documentation I made.

Second Co-op Rotation

Jason
Major: Electrical Engineering The tasks that I was assigned to do was to write software tests, find bugs in a system, and building products.

Co-op at Phase 1

Isabelle
Major: Electrical Engineering At Phase 1, I worked on GPS trackers, linear motors, PCB designs, and schematic capture. These all were huge applications to the projects I helped complete.

A Great Environment

Ian
Major: Electrical Engineering During my internship I was able to get an fpga program that runs MAPS (Modular active protection system) up and running. I got the same fpga with different firmware to send and receive data over TSN (time sensitive networking), and I designed a gui application from the ground up that would create configuration files for a bridged endpoint.

Service Engineer Co-op

Mark
Major: Electrical Engineering Over the entirety of my co-op rotation, I completed two main tasks. The first task I completed was programming for a machine that aided in the assembly of luxury car grills. The main thing I did was help use a LIN protocol to set the software for these car grills. The other task I completed was to provide service to various customers when a problem arose. This gave me a variety of experiences in problem-solving.

Koops Automation Mechanical Engineer Co-op Experience

Carter
Major: Electrical Engineering Throughout my co-op at Koops Automation Systems, I primarily worked on CAD, designing custom automation solutions. From adding fasteners to creating parts, I designed automated machines to increase production and lessen the manufacturing costs of various products.

CO-OP in Electrical building design

Joseph
Major: Electrical Engineering This semester I helped with a Red Arrow project that were apartments in Detroit Michigan. I work on some schools helping the K-12 group, most of my recent types has been working on Washtenaw Armory, Dearborn Inn, and Eden Park which is a park in Detroit Michigan. Most of our projects are in metro Detroit because the company is based in metro Detroit. However, there are some projects that are in Grand Rapids and Muskegon. As an electrical CO-OP, I placed outlets on plans, placed lighting equipment on plans, created circuits for the buildings to use and did lighting calculations which are calculation to do to make sure there is enough light in an area. A lot of our work is designing based on what is allowable by the code standards in Michigan.

3rd Co-op Rotation

Yougourthene
Major: Electrical Engineering I took charge of this exciting project involving the development of a new machine for producing Dodge Durango tail lights. Using AutoCAD, I crafted the electrical prints and organized the control panel layout. Following that, I handled the wiring of the control panel and created the PLC program, ensuring seamless machine operation by programming the HMI screen. As an additional measure, I incorporated Keyence vision systems into the project to elevate quality control and establish a secure work environment.

Electrical Design at TowerPinkster

Justin
Major: Electrical Engineering Performed electrical design tasks for commercial archecture projects in the K/12, higher education, government, commercial, and other industry sectors.

3rd Co-Op Rotation

Jake
Major: Electrical Engineering My daily tasks for this rotation varied since there are around 200 test stations that need to be sustained at the GR site. Tasks daily could range from software updates/debugging, to hardware/circuit trouble shooting and debugging. The main tasks I completed were ordering parts for two new stations worth over $100,000 and creating new electrical drawing packages for the new test station. Other than those tasks I made a few larger software updates to improve testing efficiency by adding new libraries.

Electrical Design at TowerPinkster

Justin
Major: Electrical Engineering I did electrical design for various architecture projects ranging from elementary schools to affordable housing for the elderly. My responsibilities as a designer spanned from the electrical pole on the street all the way to the light switch.

Koops Service Co-op Rotation

Ethan
Major: Electrical Engineering I built and wired a panel to run a machine, I built, modified, and tuned that machine, and I also programmed a small portion of it. I also went on various service trips both in and out of state, refurbishing and fixing old machines.

Controls Engineering Co-op at Progressive Surface

Taylor
Major: Electrical Engineering Task that I have worked on at Progressive Surface include working on project schematics and layouts, setting up computers for the machines, and wiring components for testing purposes.

Signal integrity / Power integrity Co-op Experience

Ian
Major: Electrical Engineering As a SIPI co-op student, I performed time-domain and frequency-domain measurements on customer products. I also performed EMC pre-compliance testing on customer products, as well as networked and discussed various engineering topics with customers.

EGR390 Experience

Jake
Major: Electrical Engineering I completed multiple cable drawing packages that interface between our completed automated test stations to both flight data recorder products and displays. I also completed electrical schematics and a printed circuit board design for a cable tester completed new product that has its own printed circuit board inside of the cable. In between working on projects, I spent my time sustaining production test stations which include 3-axis robots and outdated hands-on electronic test fixtures.

JR Automation Control Engineering Co-op

Ryan
Major: Electrical Engineering As a controls engineering, I am responsible for programming these machines using PLCs (Programmable logic controllers, and HMIs (Human Machine Interfaces). Other responsibilities include using AutoCAD Electrical to design and update machine electrical documentation.

2nd Co-op Rotation

Yougourthene
Major: Electrical Engineering I was tasked to redesign and build a device that tests the different functions of the Ford Bronco tail lamp. Another project that I worked on consisted of designing a smart lamp, which is a lamp with an additional circuit that will modify its functioning by simulating individual failures of the LEDs sequentially. The smart lamp is used to check if the equipment could detect the failures. I also did a lot of troubleshooting of failed lamps to determine the exact cause of the failure and then documented the findings in a report.

The life in High Speeds

Nicholas
Major: Electrical Engineering Tasks ranged from troubleshooting preproduction parts to running simulations of circuit boards. It also entailed working with clients from Fortune 500 companies to small entities like our organization.