This project was important to everyone at my workplace because it lets employees check the status of the 3D printer instead of having to walk across the campus. This is a great help because people here had to walk across the campus just to check its status and most of the time it's already in use for awhile. This project makes it so that employees now won't have to take so much time out of their day to just to check on the printer and start a print job. Also with the webcam pointing at the printer if someone has returned to their office that has started a print job then they are able to check the progress of it on the webcam and be able to tell if it had failed or if it's done.
The process for getting this to work was quite long. First I had to flash the SD card with the Octopi software that the Raspberry Pi can load. Then once that was complete then after doing some configuring of the Pi I was able to connect it to the 3D printer. Once that was completed I had to connect it to the network, connect to the Pi itself thought a webbroswer and then I was able to use the octopi.
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This internship has been very valuable to me for sparking new interests in possible future careers. Over the course of this month I have discovered both new possible careers I can pursue and experienced different types of workplaces. All of which fall under or close to the engineering field, which is what I want to pursue in addition to being a pilot. I'm not quite sure what exact field of engineering I want to study at this point. My internship gave me the experience of engineering fields like: electrical design and some software. I think since my internship I feel that electrical engineering would be my best fit in the future. I really enjoyed troubleshooting a 3D printer that developed a short.
I worked with both long time employees and brand new college interns. Working with both of them gave me good ideas of how to work in an corporate environment. What's nice is that your hours are a little flexible so you get to decide on when you show up to work and when you leave and when you go to lunch. Sometimes it depends on what other parts of the country or world your teaming up with or working with. You might have to adjust to working with coworkers working in other countries and other time zones. You can take breaks when ever you want so there is much more freedom here compared to school. It's very different from attending high school with everything being on a set daily schedule. When having to collaborate with others you have to set up times and dates that work for everyone. It is nice when you ask someone to help or meet with you they will most likely do it because they're all on the same team. These were definitely things I had to prepare for when starting my internship. One of my main projects was to add the ability to wireless connect to the maker labs 3D printer so workers here can monitor the status the printer from their office. This is nice because most people who want to do this would normally have to walk across the campus just to find out that most of the time the printer is in use. Also, there will be a webcam pointing at the print bed that will view in detail the status of the current print. Anyone who has started a print and has returned to their office can check in on it to know if both when the job is done and if there were any errors in the print. At this point of time the project is not done. The reason being is that the security is very strict and worried about having our 3D printer being able to be controle and viewed on the network. They are afraid that hackers from outside the network will try to break in and either get sensitive information and/or make the printer do harmful things to it self like for example: set the temperature of the extruder to a dangerous height and start a fire or print a useless large object just to waste our supply of 3D filament. This internship has been very meaningful to me and my future because this is most likely what my field of study is going to be. Being able to work in such a open space with such flexible hours is a totally different experience from high school. In high school I feel that we are somewhat controlled by the staff, our precise hours and class times. Here I feel that I am much more independent in the sense, they have faith in me that my work will be completed on time and my lunch and hours can be more flexible. It makes me feel very excited and a little relaxed when thinking of my future. What I saw in all my co-workers was dedication. Everyone wanted to get their work done efficiently and with quality and good results. Coming from a school where group projects are everywhere and most of the time you will get one or two membermers that don't do as much as the other. It was nice seeing that in a professional workplace that also conducts work in group projects that everyone gives one hundred percent to get their share of the work done fast. That is a model that I strive to be when I get into my future career. I am looking forward to finding work that I am interested in, be knowledgeable with the job and will be proud of my work, How my internship influences my direction in life is to find a job that I will enjoy going to everyday. Even if it's a job that doesn't pay top dollar as long as I can be independent and support myself I will feel in have succeeded. I have enjoyed working here at my internship. It has shown me how important enjoying your job is. Working here where some of the work here is a bit challenging I know I will struggle but I still enjoy the challenge. I could easily see myself applying here after college. I've met with other employees here and have learned that many of them have had many other jobs for how young they are. The reason why they do this is to find the perfect job and in areas that they could see themselves working for the rest of their lives. |