Second Semester Engineering Co-op
Austin
Experience Information
Employer: Weiss Envirotronics
Job Title: Mechanical Engineer Intern
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Envirotronics designs and manufactures environmental test chambers and equipment. Our company specializes in the design, manufacture, and modification of environmental test chambers for temperature, humidity, vibration, altitude, thermal shock, portable shock chambers, burn-in chambers, custom equipment, fluid chillers, air burn-in systems, SAE dust chambers, combustion air units, automotive test systems, drive-in chambers, conditioned rooms, and forced air ovens. These systems require refrigeration systems controlled by programmable logic controllers.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
I supported the service team, production team, cabinet engineers, refrigeration engineers, and electrical engineers in their everyday tasks. For our engineers, I helped model assemblies in our CAD software, updated refrigeration and electrical schematics, put together bills of materials, released jobs to production, documented engineering/sales changes, and did projects to help improve our processes.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
The second co-op semester grew my knowledge of the specific components in the chambers and what each part's purpose is. This is especially true for the electrical and refrigeration components. Gaining this knowledge at work has even helped me do some self-maintenance work on appliances and other things such as my dryer, heating and cooling system in my apartment, and an automatic reclining chair.
Favorite Part of the Experience
My favorite part of this co-op experience was the relationships with coworkers I've gained and continued to grow from the first co-op semester. I have gotten a lot closer with some of the employees at Envirotronics, particularly with the engineers. It was easy for me to do work for them because I appreciate them and admire what they do.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
This semester of co-op has given me a good perspective on what hard work and diligence can do to my value as an employee. Compared to what I knew at the beginning of the semester, I would consider myself way more helpful to the company. Working for Envirotronics has influenced me to continue this growth of practical knowledge to make me more beneficial for the people I work with.