Viastore Co-Op 1st Rotation
Noah
Experience Information
Employer: Viastore Systems
Job Title: Electrical Engineering Co-Op
Major: Electrical Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Viastore is a company that focuses on the industrial needs of its customers. Their main area of expertise is in PLC and conveyors but they are able to make designs the meet specific customers' needs as well.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
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.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
During this Co-Op I was introduced to ladder logic in Studio 5000, I also learned how to read drawing sets of the projects to be able to see how the PLC program was to interface and double check that I/Os were connected to correct ports with correct IP addresses. Communicating with other departs was also a huge part of the job as the commissioning process takes off, you have to be able to communicate with personal that does pneumatics, and mechanical technicians to get the physical parts of the project functioning properly so you can interface it with the PLC.
Favorite Part of the Experience
The best part of this Co-Op was getting to work hands on. Viastore has you start by going straight to their job sites for the majority of your first rotation which allowed me to actually experience what life as a full time controls engineer would be like. So going straight to working on their actual job sites was by far the best part of the experience.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
This experience has definitely helped me understand what a career in controls engineering would be like. The work seems fun, and you are always working on different tasks/ projects, so you never get stuck doing the same thing day in and day out which I find to be really nice. However, there is a considerable amount of traveling that I was not aware of, so now I know to take traveling into consideration when looking at my career path in the future.
Internship Format
In Person