Co-Op at Koops
Michael
Experience Information
Employer: Koops, Inc.
Job Title: Controls Engineering Intern
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Koops provides custom factory automation systems to a number industrial manufactures. While most of these industries are automotive, their customer base includes the biomedical field along with a range of others. Th organization puts a focus on top quality systems while being stewards of the community and the environment. The automation is designed, built, wired, and programmed in house and shipped to customers throughout the country and internationally to locations in Canada and Mexico.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
At Koops, I interned in the controls department. This section of the company is concerned with programming the machines to perform the task desired. I worked on various projects that speed up manufacturing processes, programming the digital logic that commands the actions of the machine and the interface an operator uses to communicate with the machine. The controls team is able to help with design changes as the machine is dry run and debugged, as the project as designed often must receive further adjustments before it is shipped to the customer.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
I came in with a general knowledge of circuits, digital logic, and programming in C++. While on the job, I learned how to use professional programming software to program logic controls and the human-machine interfaces of the machine. I also learned a lot about real world problem solving. Any problem, whether it is local to the software, the machine components, the computer being used, must be solved to complete a project. This means searching for answers wherever they can be found, from the internet to tech support to fellow colleagues. At the beginning, I had nearly no knowledge of factory automation programming. I can now independently program a simple machine for a customer from start to finish.
Favorite Part of the Experience
I have a few. The team at Koops is the most friendly, hard-working, and supportive family of colleagues a green intern like myself could hope to work with. Everyone is passionate and adept in their profession and committed to working together. My supervisor was patient with my inexperience, an expert of his craft, and as good a teacher as I've ever had in school. There is little more fulfilling than seeing a project come to completion, showing a customer the final product perform to expectation after hours of attention, especially when I knew next to nothing at the start of the summer.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
My experience at Koops has expanded my perspective on what is important in a career. The quality of the people you work with is as important if not more so than your actual day to day activities. Also, I now truly realize how many directions I can go with my degree, as many of my colleagues were mechanical engineers by diploma, but of them more than half did work in areas other than mechanical design. I also discovered a strong interest in controls, a discipline of engineering I had previously dismissed due to inexperience. I hope that wherever my career takes me I will have a team of colleagues and value set around me which emulates that I experienced at Koops.