My Link
My LINK Internship was with Carbon Form Designs, which is an artisan metal working shop that creates one of a kind pieces of furniture typically made out of steel and occasionally accented by other mediums like wood or concrete. My mentor was Ryan Finnigan and I did my internship alongside a long time friend of mine named Max Lobig. Together we built an IOT home integrated smart table. The table was made out of steel and wood with conductive graphite inlays in the wood. Built into the table was a high impedance circuit which keeps a weak circuit with high resistance. Because of this the circuit will travel the path of least resistance when you touch the steel frame and the inlay, which then creates a new circuit which then can tell the arduino to send a signal to send power to whatever it is plugged into. A skill I had experience in would be heavy lifting and other labor intensive tasks. I practiced a lot of new skills during my LINK including welding, grinding, surface preparation, and patinas/staining and finishing.
Reflection
I did my link at Carbon Form Design with Ryan Finnigan. A long-time friend did this LINK internship with me, Max Lobig. It was terrific to share this experience with a friend and to share our skill sets as well as learn new ones together.
Before this LINK internship, I had been experienced with labor-intensive work. I had little knowledge of the skills that I would learn during LINK but I was confident that whatever new skills I would face, I would be able to learn quickly. It was an interesting project and the skills that I spent the most time on were grinding with an angle grinder, surface prep, and welding. By the end of LINK, I feel I had become most efficient with my skill with a grinder and welder although these are not the only skills I learned during my LINK. I also gained knowledge of other skills such as learning to properly cut and measure the piece of wood for our table. We did not spend a lot of time on this aspect of things because of the amount of time we had to spend on welding and grinding as those were crucial to making the frame of our project sturdy and look nice. If we had spent more time learning about proper fitments and furthered our understanding of how the wood pieces would fit in the frame, the outcome would have been a much better wood corner that would have covered any gaps in the top of the wood. However, I am very pleased with how the project looked for the presentation. I did have concerns that we might not finish it for the transeo exhibition. It looked great but I do believe that if we had more time to work with these skills and refine our understanding of these skills then the outcome would have been even better.
The reason we were not able to make the wood pieces nicer was due to the complexity of the project and the short time frame that we had for this type of project. The amount of time for the surface prep and welding took much more time than anticipated. We spent over a week just measuring, cutting, welding, and grinding the flat bar for our steel frame. This was essential because although decorative, the flat bar was an essential part of the frame and was the whole reason it could stand at all, so it had to be perfect. After we had gotten all of the flat bar cut in the first couple days of our internship we spent about a week grinding and welding until we had amazing corners that looked like they were bent instead of welded.
In addition to grinding and welding, cutting, and prepping the table frame we had to do some coding for the electrical portion of this project. This part of the project frustrated me because I have been into coding for years and I was excited about learning more coding through this project. Unfortunately, the coding process had to be streamlined using random bits of code to make it work just for the exhibition. It did succeed but I am looking forward to expanding my skill set in this area as well.
Three weeks was a limited time to get a complex project done but in addition to that our mentor Ryan needed some help getting the “bump-out” for a local restaurant completed and asked for our help which we were quick to give. With our help, Carbon Form Designs was able to complete the “bump-out” only one day behind schedule. This delayed our project for the Transeo exhibition but we worked late in the evenings of the last week and over the weekend until we had it completed for the show. We all worked well together and because we had helped with the other project everyone was pulling together to get these transeo exhibit project ready to roll. Overall, I feel that we had a very successful outcome, we learned a lot of new skills, developed team-based efforts to get projects not only completed but the finished product was amazing. I look forward to expanding my knowledge and skills in this area.
Before this LINK internship, I had been experienced with labor-intensive work. I had little knowledge of the skills that I would learn during LINK but I was confident that whatever new skills I would face, I would be able to learn quickly. It was an interesting project and the skills that I spent the most time on were grinding with an angle grinder, surface prep, and welding. By the end of LINK, I feel I had become most efficient with my skill with a grinder and welder although these are not the only skills I learned during my LINK. I also gained knowledge of other skills such as learning to properly cut and measure the piece of wood for our table. We did not spend a lot of time on this aspect of things because of the amount of time we had to spend on welding and grinding as those were crucial to making the frame of our project sturdy and look nice. If we had spent more time learning about proper fitments and furthered our understanding of how the wood pieces would fit in the frame, the outcome would have been a much better wood corner that would have covered any gaps in the top of the wood. However, I am very pleased with how the project looked for the presentation. I did have concerns that we might not finish it for the transeo exhibition. It looked great but I do believe that if we had more time to work with these skills and refine our understanding of these skills then the outcome would have been even better.
The reason we were not able to make the wood pieces nicer was due to the complexity of the project and the short time frame that we had for this type of project. The amount of time for the surface prep and welding took much more time than anticipated. We spent over a week just measuring, cutting, welding, and grinding the flat bar for our steel frame. This was essential because although decorative, the flat bar was an essential part of the frame and was the whole reason it could stand at all, so it had to be perfect. After we had gotten all of the flat bar cut in the first couple days of our internship we spent about a week grinding and welding until we had amazing corners that looked like they were bent instead of welded.
In addition to grinding and welding, cutting, and prepping the table frame we had to do some coding for the electrical portion of this project. This part of the project frustrated me because I have been into coding for years and I was excited about learning more coding through this project. Unfortunately, the coding process had to be streamlined using random bits of code to make it work just for the exhibition. It did succeed but I am looking forward to expanding my skill set in this area as well.
Three weeks was a limited time to get a complex project done but in addition to that our mentor Ryan needed some help getting the “bump-out” for a local restaurant completed and asked for our help which we were quick to give. With our help, Carbon Form Designs was able to complete the “bump-out” only one day behind schedule. This delayed our project for the Transeo exhibition but we worked late in the evenings of the last week and over the weekend until we had it completed for the show. We all worked well together and because we had helped with the other project everyone was pulling together to get these transeo exhibit project ready to roll. Overall, I feel that we had a very successful outcome, we learned a lot of new skills, developed team-based efforts to get projects not only completed but the finished product was amazing. I look forward to expanding my knowledge and skills in this area.
Senior Year/ College and Career
My next steps in high school are going to Pueblo Community College: Gateway to College and completing my high school diploma. Furthermore I will be continuing my internship with Carbon Form Design over the summer, learning more new skills and furthering the skills I had learned during my LINK. My plans for senior year are to continue working on my skills with custom fabrication, as well as learn more about programming and how technology can be integrated into furniture and other household items. Currently I do not know what courses I will be taking for senior year as I am going to PCC and do not have an accurate idea of how many credits I will need for next year. After senior year I will be spending a year developing skills and working. I am then planning on going to San Juan Community College for an associates degree in mechatronics. This will allow me to further my understanding on how technology is changing and how that can be used to create some truly impressive creations. Ultimately I want to be able to develop new innovations in technology and either run my own business or work for a bigger company where I can turn ideas into products.