My last trip into work was a fun one. Instead of continuing to drill down on vague manufacturer-specific machine instructions, I was surprisingly asked to go back to the Moonshine shop. When I got there, I was shown an Arduino, a thermistor, and a light pole.

All they wanted me to do was get a 24-Volt light to flash when the temperature of their new project fell outside the thresholds. They fed me a chicken sandwich and a shake. I said yes.

Therefore, I am once again coding an Arduino to display “blinking light”… never underestimate those early lessons!

The harder part was getting the light pole to work… it took an intern, engineer, and Moonshiner to figure out which wires to short to turn the light on… but we got it!

Time has been moving slowly and quickly over the summer, all at the same time! Now that my NC program is polished and ready to be put on the machines when they are between jobs, days stretch when my projects need answers and summer still flows past unapologetically. The past few weeks have had some interesting points.

When I returned from my two-week vacation home (that’s right, I actually took one!), I discovered it was my assignment leader’s week off. Not being one to twiddle my thumbs for eight hours, I went to the newly-finished Moonshine shop to see what I could do. Having a lack of anything else for me, the engineer there told me I could fix an industrial 3D printer that I’ve never used.

Beggars cannot be choosers, so I followed my intern compatriot into the ice-cool 3D printer booth so he could demonstrate why the double-wide refrigerator-sized machine would not render his creation in its microwave-sized printing box. The display was lit but blank and the red and green buttons would only change the pace at which the other lit up. Turning the machine off and on and unplugging it did nothing, so he left as I called the number on the machine.

While on the phone, I was asked whether I had turned off the UPS yet. Finally, I felt capable! I know what an uninterrupted power supply looks like from my days as an internet installation technician and located one in a box next to the machine, uninstalled. He had me uninstall the side panels on the machine to look inside… eventually I figured out that once the screws are loose, the panels slide off. Underneath the insulated printing box was a whole array of circuit boards, the power supply, and a metal box he referred to as the “computer box.”

After struggling to understand where the extra cables were that he was talking about, I noticed that there was, in fact, a UPS buried under the circuit boards. I jammed myself behind the machine and used my phone camera to locate the UPS power switch and finally powered the unit down. Unplugging the machine did nothing because that’s the whole point of a UPS; it is a battery backup. Essentially, all that we had to do was “turn the machine off and on again,” as is any tech support person’s opening line.

Triumphantly, I brought my coworker back in. He told me he knew what to do once it was on, but I used the knowledge of CNC interfaces I had gained working on my coding project to warm up the nozzle so he could get the print plate off. When I asked the engineer what to do next, all he could say was “honestly, I thought the printer would take you a little longer.”

We had been kicking around ideas for getting metal chips out of a very narrow, L-shaped channel that had to be drilled. My coworker was printing his complicated ideas, but I wondered why we should even allow there to be chips in the first place?

Having nothing better to do, I set about making a simple proof-of-concept. My thought was, why not open all possibilities? By eliminating the need for chip extraction, I was now allowing for a problem to exist. The plan was to have a filler material that the drill bit could pass through (only about an eighth of an inch thick) that would be removed when the drilling was done and take any chips with it. I also toyed with having an eighth-inch ring inserted around the drilling area before drilling to pull out the chips that would be flung inside the chamber.

I quickly realized I did not have access to any of the useful machinery. Even if I snuck it, the band saw was gone. I fished an aluminum beam out of the trash and took a hack saw to it lengthwise. As I was cutting, the nearby machinist said “when your arms get tired, there’s a Sawzall in the materials room.” Of course! It was a little messier but saved me a lot of sweat.

As with any worthwhile project, I had a point at which I considered scrapping the whole thing. It turns out sheet metal screws insert more debris into an eighth inch of aluminum than they are worth. I tailgated back into the materials room to get some self-tapping screws, which satisfyingly pulled all three strips together.

When I tested it, the idea worked flawlessly. I had taken some test tokens to the grinder and shaved them down to perfectly wedge their way between the strips. I thought my presentation was top-notch.

While waiting to present the idea to the Moonshine engineer, my fellow intern (the one who was rendering complicated solutions on the 3D printer, as his training is CAD-based) was curious. For sheer amusement, I kept him guessing and the closest he got was a kalimba.

I presented to the engineer and he was not inclined to improve the idea. That’s how it goes, but I was happy to have gotten a viable idea presentable in less than half a day!

When I thought I was completely out of things to do, my assignment leader, who returned this week, threw “a great project” my way. I dug right into it. My first CAD project in school was modeling a tool vise. Ironically, my second big CAD project is also modeling a tool vise (this one is pneumatic). I got pretty far with my own models before I was emailed some fancy manufacturer’s models, which admittedly look much better. Today, I completed my version of the vise itself, which does look rather nice if I say so myself.

Also today, the technician I hired to update our controls for a house-sized CNC mill showed up. It seems a minute detail, but I discovered that, contrary to the 1994 machine with the name-brand controls I have been coding, the bitwise indicators on this are read in descending order… an unmentionable amount of money later and the technician was still on his way. Should I tell my boss the ultimate result?

Update: looking over the invoice, it appears they took pity on me and waived most of the charges. What luck!

Today I was in the moonshine “shop” again! I used quotations because the shop is still yet to be, but the tool room is in shambles as a result. I had a good few weeks, and this moonshine operation actually has me working next to the group I was previously in.

My current group consists of the machinist from last time, my assignment leader, and a few others, presumably machinists. The other group is made of the lead engineer from last time, the two interns, the safety guy, and the friendly guy near my original cube that I have not mentioned. My group has already made some fast strides and we are preparing to mock-up the second part of the process. There is lots of laughter and people take the time to understand each other’s ideas, which I value. As usual, the machinist has some extremely practical ones!

We have a lot to catch up on, so let’s start where we left off. First, the fixture my group and I designed last time was tested and is nearing implementation. We are all very proud. Second, that horrible PowerPoint I started my first week has been transferred to the intern I found a monitor for. Hey, I equipped her with a Monitor, well-organized spreadsheet, and most of a PowerPoint; the rest is up to her! In other news, my high-importance project is the most boring and has the last documentation; I need to migrate data to a system that no one knows anything about.

I have been chipping away at the boring project, but I’d like to at least finish one while I am here. Therefore, I have spent a lot of time plugging away on the numerical control (NC) coding project. I digested all of the code, finally! There were some strange system variables that I could not find in the manual and some even stranger uses of them in conjunction with mystery variables that neither the program nor the machine operator knew of. I had a big Eureka moment when I was iterating through the instructions on the actual machine, rather than relying on the printout I was given. And there it was; the printout omitted the introduction of the mystery variables. And finding that line also meant finding the circular dependency that was giving them perfect data without fail! I used the context to then figure out the remaining system variables. It took a whole day of banging my head and calling maintenance to upload the first rendition of the program because the two identical machines are set up differently and the manual leaves important parts out. The good news: the program is updated and the output actually changes with the part, now. The bad news: the information being measured is still inaccurate, even when the measuring device and the part being measured are dead-on. There are still some offsets I have to find the root of and I will inevitably need a different measuring tool to make those offsets obsolete. But I’ve made a huge amount of progress and the problems are what make that worth celebrating!

I have been nervous about the pace of my projects and that they are not getting done very quickly. I will share some compliments that put me at ease these past few weeks. The machine operator for the CNC mill I am working on has been a great companion and makes me feel better about trying potentially costly new things, since he knows the machine well enough to prevent much damage from being done. One day, he was very interested in why the machine was screwing up and I insisted that we run it line by line, leading me to solve the problem of the mystery variables. He congratulated me and told me I would make a great detective!

Occasionally, I get to see my assignment leader (AL). He is, of course busy with many things. He is laid-back, but one never knows what he is thinking. In the two times he has stopped by the last few weeks, he told me that he is impressed with how quickly I picked up on the NC coding (I knew nothing about any of the projects he assigned at the start). When I told him I felt like I had nothing to show besides half of a PowerPoint, he told me, “the first three to four weeks are usually slow because interns are just getting their laptops to work, waiting for approvals, and getting set up. In terms of staying on top of things, your work ethic, and your intelligence, you’re doing just fine.” He doesn’t say much usually, so when he said that, I felt good that he was paying attention and that he respected my progress!

Today, he gave me credit in an unexpected way. We were trying to mock up a way to hold our given part, which is anything but linear. He wanted to get a cross-section printed out, so we all gathered around his malfunctioning laptop. By nearly lunchtime, we still did not have a printout, so I figured such precision was unnecessary for a wooden mock-up. I looked around for some way to trace the cross-section instead. Seeing only nonrigid wires and no wire snips in our metal waste bin, I went back to the other building where we had dug out some cardboard from. In that metal waste bin, I found load straps and brought them back. I couldn’t find anyone in the group, so I commenced to molding the strap to the part and tracing the cross-section.

After lunch, my AL got on a conference call with the LEAN leader, who can be quite particular. In order to impress the leader, he said “most groups would have spent time looking for a CAD solution, but we used this to trace the part.” He looked up from the screen and gave me a nod and a grin. “He loves that stuff,” my AL explained after the call.

Speaking of my assignment leader, he was the one I had to get approval from to use the stack of Arduinos left in my office, even though he works in another building. That is how many hats he wears. What interests me is that there is no irrelevant project. Often, using an Arduino makes me think it’s just kid stuff, that maybe I will learn to program real microcontrollers someday. But here I am at one of the world’s biggest companies, grabbing an Arduino from some Great who sat in my chair before me, experimenting and Googling to find enough information to use some sensors to light up LEDs for part of the CNC project. Blinking Light is literally part of my intern project.

I realized that in school, there is a very small scope of what can and should be done. That leads me to think that I have to be the best at what is presented or to do what nobody else does. Really, though, it is a boon to work with people who know more than I do and it is awesome that there are so many people who can do very similar things that I can. That’s because there are so many projects in the world that we can all enjoy and be part of. Even though they are similar in scope, they can be new or enjoyable to any given person. We can still be autonomous and vital to our organizations for doing them and we are not tied to the project for life; if we decide to move on, someone else can take our place and use the documentation [hint, hint] that we so thoughtfully left behind. There is so much to enjoy and it’s okay to be anywhere along the way.

Today was back to work as usual. We got about 90% of the way through machining and implementing our moonshined solution and the full-timers will continue doing that this week while we interns do intern stuff.

I actually felt a lot better about my work today. As it turns out, the key to success as an intern is not knowing all of the answers, but knowing how to find them. Last week, I got a few tips about learning CNC code from the machinist I was working with and eventually got enough background knowledge to take a stab at Googling things. That seems to be the basis for everyone’s coding knowledge that I talk to, as there is no “manual,” as we are taught to use.

That is, most people cannot find a manual. Once I finished digesting the relevant code, I brought it over to the machine in question and talked to the operator/manager about it. While we were puzzling over why the programmer did what he did, he searched the drawers in front of the machine. Lo and behold! He found a manual all about parameters, which is what we needed! No general manual for the machine, though.

Later in the day, my quest brought me to maintenance. Anyone who had any coding knowledge eventually referred me to them. The fella who came with me to the machine said that people do not expect that maintenance ought to code, but how else can they troubleshoot when the problem is not a broken part? He also reaffirmed that knowing how to find the answer is the most important factor of solving a problem, admitting that he is no master programmer. I applaud that; people like him are an asset to whatever role they perform.

The maintenance man had one more contribution. As I showed him all of the quirks of the program, he also lamented that a manual would be useful. He turned around and searched another set of drawers and procured the Holy Grail: a general numerical control manual for this specific series! Mind you, the machine is from 1980-something, so online resources are not abundant (and free online resources are less so). We will convene together tomorrow to hopefully address the problem, but I feel much better-equipped this week.

Another thing happened today: I scavenged a new office block! More importantly, I moved buildings. I was due to move into the building where all of my projects are, anyways. I decided that today is the day. I packed up whatever office supplies I thought would be useful besides my lonely widescreen monitor, donated a few things to my cubemate, and hit the road. Interestingly enough, the other interns’ cubemate finished his rotation, so she could move to where there are people! My assignment leader might also finally move after a few months of intending to.

The operator/manager showed me a few empty cubes in his office area. He also showed me an actual office; the shop manager had just vacated. I followed his suggestion and moved into that nice office until someone kicks me out. It beats having to squeeze in among piles of someone else’s stuff that I’m not allowed to move… well, less of it, anyways. The best part is that between all of the recently-vacated offices, I was able to assemble the thing I originally ordered: two widescreens and a dock. Good thing I waited! I donated an extra widescreen I found to my old cubemate, who clearly needed it. I thought I would need any of the office supplies I brought with me. That is not the case.

My supplier called right as everyone noticed I had moved into the office, so I missed the opportunity to exchange smart-Alecky comments. On the bright side, I will have more to keep me busy tomorrow, on both accounts.

It is the worst feeling in the world to contribute nothing to a paid position. I am looking forward to being useful this week, now that I am beginning to learn who to talk to and where to look for solutions. Getting paid to learn and figure things out is a dream come true!

It’s safe to say my first week was slow. I wouldn’t mind but I am always trying to find something to do; I know that the longer I wait to get going, the less projects I can get my hands on.

Small victories included getting an old, square Dell monitor working with a DVI cable and a DVI-HDMI adapter (balanced upon a thick 2000s Visual Basic manual out of respect), the Flat Tire has generally been rolling and not turning off when asleep, and I got a ten-year-old 3D mouse working with an old driver that the IT guy steered me towards!

We, the interns on my half of the campus, have continued meeting for lunch. It is nice to have willful human contact during the day. One thing I will say about the people here in general is that they are good-natured and fun to work with. In fact, including the kayak-making job, I am at a rare point in my life where I work with all decent people! The odds are high, considering that’s true at both companies and I have met many people in a week and a half.

One man I was grateful to meet (again) today was the tech wizard, who was one of the first people I talked to at the internship. We were finishing lunch and I mentioned a project I am finally assembling the pieces for. I had only broad objectives and contact information, so I wandered and talked to the relevant staff until I had something to work with. When I mentioned that to Mr. [humble] Wizard gave essentially a codex of numerical control functions and a website to get the manufacturer-specific functions from! It’s always good to know a wizard, even if he is sworn to deny his wizardry.

Another person I met was my new cube (area) mate! She is another mechanical engineering intern who started a week later than I. She may not know the plight last week of a 62-degree office (I brought a thermometer), but she did end up in a very nice cube with a window that I completely overlooked. I am happy she got the nice one, though, because I will soon move to the next building over, so I can be nearer to the projects I work on. The weather would suggest I don’t have to worry about a cold office in the coming weeks, but my order for a company hoodie did come in today. I will find an opportunity to sport it soon, even if I must make one… actually, if I could find the thermostat, I would not be writing about this.

Today was mostly spent on ever-appearing training and acknowledgements and an internship-specific virtual presentation. Just when the interns think we have completed all required submissions, we get an email saying something is incomplete on a site we have never heard of. It’s just as well, since we are still collecting ourselves the first few weeks, and gathering supplies and information. I do commend the company for having relevant material, both in the training and presentations. It is much nicer than the slapped-together readymade online trainings I have become accustomed to.

Yesterday, one of the two requested monitors made it on-site. My assigned leader (AL) said he would buy me anything they didn’t approve, so if I find I need the (requested) matching monitor and dock to connect it to, I will gratefully take him up on the offer. A laptop screen and widescreen monitor feels pretty good for now. One of the rotation engineers stopped by to see my space and said that one of his managers offered the same, since we need the right tools to do our jobs.

As I wrapped up the new batch of trainings, my AL brought me to a meeting with the people who manage the areas I will be performing projects for. I took notes and was able to get a few questions answered. The projects include setting up a new software system for the floor employees to use, learning and writing computer numerical control (CNC) code, and designing a moving platform for a fixture that’s as wide as I am tall and made of solid steel. They left me a healthy budget, so with all of the information falling into place, it’s time to start running!

This morning, instead of going directly to my cold desk, I decided to start the day at the water cooler.

I first met a machinist-turned-coder. He didn’t want to let on that he might be good at what he did, but I always see his nose to the grindstone when I walk by. I mentioned my mouse misery and he walked into another cubicle and came back with the same style of mouse that failed to work yesterday. I turned it over and there was a USB insert inside! It certainly connects better than the one I tried yesterday, whose USB insert is nowhere to be found. Level up!

I also met the coder who knows things about things. He told me that people don’t take this job to slap something together and hope it works. Anyone who’s worth anything takes this job because it’s interesting and they want to do a good job. He also said of undefined roles that they are a blessing and a curse; you get to choose what you do, even if you don’t know that it’s what they want. He mentioned, however, that the more he worked, the more he realized that if no one spoke up to say it was wrong, it must be alright. He and my classmate continued talking as I wandered back to my desk to start my day.

The coding guru down the hall mentioned that the reason the Flat Tire is so slow may be because it is still running a ton of scans and updates and they may restart if they don’t finish. So, I left my computer locked but awake anytime I was not using it. He restarts his daily.

I had some time with my AL. He invited me to shadow a conference call so I can understand better what is required of the project I am working on. I was surprised by how big of a deal thousandths of an inch is. These deceptively small parts I was cataloging are each worth a week’s pay. He explained that this is not the exciting part of engineering. I had to agree.

After the call, my AL introduced me to an in-house ordering website and showed me how to order a laptop dock, monitors, and a 3D mouse… level up! Hopefully that means I will have a use for them soon.

Instead of grazing at my desk, my classmate invited me to lunch. He filled me in on a lot of things, including that there is a closet in another building with office supplies for the taking. I had a lot more fun today on account of human interaction and I even finished cataloging the parts! Next, I will make a convincing PowerPoint that could be confused as a sedative to a layperson. Good thing I’m here to handle such potent engineering business so no one is knocked out.

One last thing; my tire has been pumped up! After leaving the computer on all day, I restarted and my folder navigation technologically advanced twenty years! Level up!

Time to attack this project so I can get to the good stuff.

Today was the second day of my internship at a fancy-shmancy world-renowned manufacturer. It has been very different than I expected. I am mostly left alone. I regret to inform you that, like my kayak-making job, pictures are prohibited on-campus.

As an aside, you may eventually see exactly what I do at the kayak factory, as a certain power couple from a home improvement network dropped by to document our process. I signed up to work on my day off of school, as the film date serendipitously coincided with our “reading day.” Alas, they moved the film date on account of the weather, since my shift lead was going paddling with them after they were done on the floor. At least I can say “I do that!” while I watch.

Yesterday, my assigned leader (AL) engineer was in his office long enough for him and the IT guy to get my laptop setup and when I returned from an all-intern conference call, he was gone for most of the rest of the day. He did leave me with a project: photograph and document 22 defective parts. I am learning the terminology still, so it is an appropriate first-week project.

Following HR’s prompts and waiting for my slow computer to load have taken most of my time, so no need to worry how fast the project is going yet. My hard disk drive on my own, lesser computer does not take as long to open empty folders, so the only thing I can guess is that the system security makes everything slower. How a computer that can run a CAD program still operates this slowly is beyond me. It is not a virtual machine. On the bright side, I found several things, today, to make my life easier.

Sometime around midday, my AL showed me down the hall to a cluster of empty office cubes. I could set up at any desk. I took the only desk with a window – score! After returning from a quick trip to the factory floor, I began looking around at the other vacant cubes.

Is that a pencil drawer? I have one, too, but it contents consist of plastic forks and pepper packets. Since no one has been here since 2019, according to the previous interns’ PowerPoint printout, no one would mind me scavenging a pencil, pen, and some paperclips. Nor a Bluetooth mouse that still has battery life. These staples may come in handy if I can find a stapler. My phone line is dead, so my [absent] cubemate won’t mind me borrowing his. Someone left behind a foot rest. Rather, they left me a foot rest, and… oh, yes. It is so cold and I did not remember a sweatshirt. They left a working space heater! Now, to see what works.

My cube mate’s phone does not dial out, despite the dial tone. He got me good, that prankster. And that other guy’s mouse will not connect because it appears my computer has no Bluetooth card. He can have it back. But the space heater works, and that’s what counts! All in all, I put together most of a working office cube from looted office supplies. I must admit, I am green with envy that my classmate’s desk on the opposite end of the hall has dual widescreen monitors for his laptop, whereas I cannot even connect an abandoned, square Dell monitor on account of a lacking VGA port. He has proven himself with CAD since January, though. I’m sure I will be equipped for whatever I delve into.

For now, I will simply have to push through this sluggish project. Retroactively, I asked and was told that I am allowed to write scripts, so making 22 folders should take less than 22 minutes in the future. Before I pack it up for the day, I did manage to catch my AL before he logged onto another conference call. He thought that the spreadsheet I made simply to organize the project was a presentable idea! I have something to look forward to tomorrow, then. After sorting pictures without labels on that computer all day, I am happy to have news other than I wasn’t going fast enough (that’s really just in my head). If I am going to endure ten weeks with this computer, it must have a name. Its name is henceforth the Flat Tire.

Once I get organized tomorrow, I will push the Flat Tire as fast as possible to get those pictures into a PowerPoint because my AL showed me around the factory yesterday. He specifically brought me to some computer terminals on swinging arms like you would expect to see in a hangar in Titanfall or the original Star Wars trilogy and asked if I knew any numerical control (NC) code. I looked at the Ms and Gs on the screen and indicated I do not. He gave an overview using a simpler machine and then we moved to a cramped desk with another swinging terminal, all of which was actually attached to the deck of a moving machine. This one had a more-involved terminal than the green cathode ray tube monitor we had just studied. It seems that I might get to take a crack at it, since they want to install a fixture that’s bigger than I am on yet a different CNC machine that can’t quite reach where they want it to. Things are about to get interesting!

Thank you for bearing with me through the busiest semester I have ever had. I now have no homework, so I will be able to write again. My video capabilities will be delayed due to computer repairs, so I apologize for leaving everyone stranded on the river.

What had me so busy? I asked myself that often. I would seem to have a handle on either the regular homework from Calculus II, Physics II, and Chemistry I or the labs and projects from Microcontrollers, Technical Communication, and Chemistry I, but then get clobbered by whichever one I had not accounted for. It was a repeating cycle, but, as I said of last semester, professors also burn out at mid-semester. While our spring break was taken away due to COVID, it did come back as one-off reading days that would screw up most remaining weeks of the semester, which made finishing homework easier due to a canceled lab or recitation here and there. But, as any student knows, homework is never really over.

I have learned a lot about intelligently using microcontrollers, specifically the STM-32LR4. These are Cortex-M4 boards, which are used in microcontrollers. Chips that you have likely interacted with are Cortex-A chips, which are used in cell phones, smart watches, and things that involve the A for application. If I ever get the time, I will use my knowledge of interrupts and timers to improve the chronograph I have been designing. It seems basic, but until you set up the registers yourself, it does not make much sense. Speaking of which, I somewhat wish we had been introduced to a code generator called the Cube. There were some labs with so many registers to set up that we had to copy examples out of the book and proof for errors. I’m glad our professor believed that we could do things the smart way, but I maintain that the only difference is we don’t have the textbook in the field but we would have the cube. Part of it is likely that this is a class for electrical and computer engineering students and they will likely have to dive into all of that at some point. This was an introduction; that is, we now can program super cool robotic functions, but we have simply learned the ropes for now.

If you are a fan of chemistry, my plight will fall on deaf ears. I am not. I actually had a good professor for the course, but think of taking a course you have no interest in and still reaching for that A. It’s tough when the motivation is not there. I still got the A because grades are largely about commitment.

Physics was taken with the same professor as last semester. I, again, really wish we could have done cool, in-person labs but at least I did so in high school. Another thing I credit the Chemistry Department with is making the effort to send us lab kits, instead of relying on middle school-level simulators like the Physics Department. I, however, credit the Physics Department for giving us two-page lab handouts instead of the Chemistry Department’s mode of twelve pages. Both courses relied heavily on Pearson, had a recitation period, and a lab period, besides the normal class times.

Speaking of which, Pearson actually helped me meet my classmates. Because our shared struggle with software that will deny you unless you follow the formatting exactly (which they do not specify), everyone was willing to stop by for a vulgar Pearson bracelet. I ordered one hundred wristbands one night after swearing at my Chemistry homework. It cost about the same as ordering fifty and I felt a lot better. The best part was becoming a local legend for a week.

Calculus II contains about 25% real calculus and 75% random things that they forgot to teach in other math courses, like all sorts of series tests. I thought it would be twice as hard as Calculus I but it was of similar or easier difficulty, largely dependent on the professor.

Technical Communication is technically a junior-level course, but it has no prerequisites, save maybe English 101. Ergo I made friends with juniors, though they all seemed to be civil engineers. The presentation by a civil engineering project manager alumnus echoes into my internship: PowerPoint and communication trump all.

I know this may not be the most upbeat blog post, but I am still trying to find enough sleep. I went straight from school to internship and will continue to work 24 hours every weekend because it is a heck of a deal. I am glad I will not have to take 19 credits in a single semester again. Twenty-one credits were manageable, even with swimming, in business school (I was pretty dang busy), but there is no wiggle room with STEM credits, only studying. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get this degree because it is a gateway to doing what I love. Next semester, I will have more time to enjoy the ride as I lead the Robotics Club as the vice president, build a Baja racing kart with the Society of Automotive Engineers, poke foils at my friends, and maybe even meet my classmates, since we have been promised the return of fully in-person classes.

I know I said I would be crazy busy and have no more time for posts but things keep changing! While I still am very busy, I got a call back from a place I had put out of my mind already. I advocate for people to get a flavor of what they want to do before they do it and I am now working in a manufacturing facility that makes kayaks! If you know Maine at all, your guess is probably correct. So far, it has been an exciting few days… it’s hard to tell if my good mood is from the people I work with or from the plastic fumes.

It seems I only get a few sentences in before people guess that I’m an engineering major. I guess other people don’t care that much about why there are heat pins in strange places or why they didn’t build stations differently.

In two days, I have trained on two different stations, since they are still figuring out where they want the new hires. The first station was probably the most fun because I got to press more buttons and make more machinery move. Today’s station had more people and the output was almost triple that of the other station. Suffice to say, my arms are feeling it! Alas, it was designed more efficiently, so I didn’t get to make as many things move.

Since they don’t want any of their secret sauce spilled, the only amusing thing I can really share is that I just noticed there are exercise plates riding around on the machinery to balance it. Strange to see them used out of context. Since I cannot provide a photo, I will have to let you imagine what I do on the daily, given this shot from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

Thank you for bearing with me during the long pause between posts. Working seventy-hour weeks for several months makes advancing my projects harder but I did still manage to eek out some studying between eating, sleeping, and working. One thing this job does bring me is fun conversations on the plane.

One plane ride, I talked the whole way with a business owner who ran several restaurants. He taught me mostly about management. He prefers to keep his “drinking buddies” separate from his work associates because it is much easier to keep someone accountable who does not have personally entangling ties. When you are the boss, it is important to be the boss.

Tonight, I was fortunate to meet a man on his way from a conference. This man is a real estate investor who flips and rents properties. He reminded me that I do not have to do everything in order to be successful. I simply need to do what I am good at and be resourceful in finding out how to do the things I am not. Sometimes that means knowing a person who can do it and other times it requires thinking outside the box – in his case, not relying strictly on bank loans. In my case, he pointed out that I am better at thinking analytically than marketing my product. If I were to think like an investor (that is, to sell value instead of time), I would take my prototypes, register them, and bring them to someone who knows manufacturing and marketing so more people could benefit from the value.

We also talked at length about happiness, success, and wealth. We have to set goals that we have no idea how to attain yet in order to be successful. If these goals solve someone’s problem we are more likely to make money doing it. As we progress towards our goal, we should mark our progress and ask if we are still doing everything we can to reach that goal. Happiness should be available at every step along the way; if it is contingent on success, it will never come. He noted that whatever we focus intentionally on will eventually manifest. If I focus on making money, I will do it because I will ask myself over and over what I can do to get there, and figure out the little steps along the way. In order to be happy in my career, I have asked myself what I can do to get there and you presently read my progress.

Whatever your goal is, I hope you are happy with your progress. We talked about believing that college is necessary to advance my goals. When I said an investor like he would probably think I was silly for going back to college, he stopped me and pointed out that I know what I need along my path. So, whether your next step is college or another commitment, I hope you are sure for yourself that your actions are bringing you closer to your dreams.

Merry Christmas to you! Since I finished the air exchange installation, I felt obliged to do some soldering before I headed back on the road for work. Even though I haven’t soldered since we moved, the little knowledge that I had was refreshed quickly. What you are about to read is ugly, so remember that this whole blog is a testament to prove that if I can do it, you can, too!

Once I made certain to tin the tip as it warmed up, I was able to make a few satisfactory practice welds by holding the side of the tip flat along the lead with the tip top against the metal contact on the circuit board. While both the tip and my hand were warmed up, I decided to whip some joints out on a real circuit board I need for an upcoming project.

As I warned you, this post contains some ugly content. The joints on the left are a little scant but the best I could do by holding the iron to the board for a few seconds. I can only get better from here, so this is my first virtual soldering mile marker.

You can see on the tan proto board my earlier handiwork. I did some adhesion and removal of wires and pins and thank goodness I had the sense to ruin a worthless piece of plastic instead of fry a chip on an overconfident first attempt. The burn marks are a warning to make sure my iron is just hot enough to get the job done, so I am only holding it to my work for a few seconds.

My biggest struggle is between keeping the iron hot enough to melt the solder and keeping the tip tinned and shiny, before it oxidizes. I think I ruined a few tips out of the box because I did not tin them as they warmed up – the shiny, factory-applied stuff just burns right up within thirty seconds of being hot and my flux-core solder does not stick to the tip anymore. Even the tip restoration videos could not help. Good thing I bought spares. By my estimation, my iron is at about 700 degrees Fahrenheit, which is on the high end of the acceptable range for my application. Lead-free solder requires a bit higher temperature anyways and the problem persists at lower temperatures, so I just decided to proceed and manage the problem until I understand it better.

I feel satisfied, having been confident enough to take a stab at a live circuit board. I know that this is just the beginning!

The process was long and I needed a few days at home from my busy, on-the-road job to accomplish it – but the air exchange system runs!

Things would have gone much quicker had I been able to use flex duct in the attic and in the outbound runs like usual. One look at the mouse mounds in my attic (see just left of where the pipes split in the left photo) and under the piano room and I tediously commenced running hard duct and insulating it. Like a good engineer, I researched all I could in order to keep cost and labor low, but the only way to keep a mouse out of a tantalizingly warm duct system is to make it out of metal. This gave me an opportunity to test out two different methods of insulating the ducts!

The first is to simply buy fiberglass-insulated flexible duct and pull the fiberglass sleeve off of the flex duct and over the hard duct after all joints are sealed and screwed down. As it turns out, there is a trick to this! Leaving the flex duct compressed is much easier to get the sleeve onto the metal duct than separating them first. This is just as relevant to a DIY homeowner as it is to you mad scientists building an experiment!

Some advice to all of the handy husbands out there, make sure the project you’re doing looks good on the home interior or you may face opposition on the next one!

Though installing it was my bane of the month, because it was properly planned, the pipe jungle in my crawlspace is actually quite effective! I hit three birds with one heavy stone. My inbound air stream, outbound air stream, and dryer vent are all vented through the area under the piano room. I did put down a drop cloth this time, so as to not kick up so much dust. But insulating the elbows still took a long bit of crawling into and out of my now sixteen-inch doorway.

To compare the two types of insulation – bubble wrap and fiberglass – I thought I was hands-down going to regret not bubble wrapping the attic, too. On the contrary, once I figured out to keep the flex duct inside the insulation sleeve while I pulled it over the metal, I would have preferred to do fiberglass than to cut and seal all of those bubble-wrapped corners. Lack of space is the leading cause of that preference, followed by needing a second roll of tape. I sealed every pipe connection, seam, and elbow, then every seam of both insulations, in order to maintain a proper moisture barrier. Talk about tedium. Buy a tape spatula so it all lays flat if you decide to run a bunch of pipe. An old credit card works for a small job.

So, at long last, I can return my focus to building my engineering skills. I have a conveniently-placed air return in my office so I have a solder fume sucker, ventilation for my kitchen and bathrooms, which will save our wooden windows, fresh air to keep my brain functioning year-round, and we no longer have to hang our clothes next to the wood stove to dry. That’s everything I wanted to do by winter, along with insulating over our kitchen, which my wife helped with, which means I should be able to space out my free time to better include engineering pursuits.