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amanda quotes

Amanda’s Quotes #8

[167-170; 174-181] Towards the end of March and beginning of April, the companies start to contact me with offers. I received a couple internship offers, so then I had to decide what I wanted to do and during what time periods. So, I decided to take two different internships. I’m going to do one straight when I get back to Europe. They’re trying to develop balance by designing an app, so they need to collect a lot of data from people that experience balance. They’re putting a person on a force plate, connecting the person with a lot of sensors, and connecting the sensors to a computer, then you will get out different data, like the aspiration, displacement. From that, they’re going to try to build this app. The two main groups for data collection involve people who are retired and athletes.

[184-187] I’ll be responsible for collecting data. So, I’m going to put the sensors on the athletes, and then I’m going to record it, and then in Matlab I am going to retrieve the data, and by Matlab I will be able to see some aspiration, for example. So, it’s just data collection.

[189-195; 199-202] Then, the second internship is only a month long. So, after that I’m going to go back to my hometown, and then I’m going to work with a company which is trying to produce oil from trees. So, the main purpose of the company is to produce paper, but when they’re producing paper, they’re getting a lot of residual product, and so they will now try to come up with oil, so they can start selling oil as well. For this internship, I think I will have a really free role, they will just give me a task, like we need to make this production more cost effective then I’m just going to try to come up with a solution.

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amanda quotes

Amanda’s Quotes #9

[170-172; 219-224; 226-230; 235-240; 242-244] Now everything is decided, and I know what I’m going to do during the summer, I don’t need to spend more time on finding an internship. This semester I’ve started to have more connection with my professors. It started with me have to ask one of my professors for internship assignments, so I got a really good consult with him. And then, he introduced me to another professor that is in charge of a lot of different research projects at school. So then, I started to talk with him, so now I’m involved in some of his research projects. The main project involves hip replacement. When some kids are born, they have problems with their hips, so when they’re getting older they need a hip transplant. But, to avoid this, we can fix it in this early stage when they’re born. The project is with some professors from our school, some PhD students from our school, and also some professors and doctors. So, they’re really, really smart compared to me. I’m not a huge part of that project. I’m more there just to listen, and learn, and try to understand, and maybe in the future start to work on it, like next year if I want to stay at school. But, right now I don’t contribute anything. I’m just there to learn.

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Amanda’s Quotes #11

[138-145] After I completed the first internship, I started another internship that was related to chemistry more. The reason why I did that one, because it was near my hometown. So, I could stay get some experience or some money while I could be at home. We were going to find a new oil, but we take it from the trees, the rest of the product when you are producing paper. And with that can paint it on, on a regular sheet of paper, and that makes the paper water-resistant. So, let’s say that you’re having a moving box, or something like that, and you have the paint on it, it got produced that way. Then it can have it outside and then even though it’s raining and everything, the stuff inside it won’t get wet.

[153-155] The goal of the project was to determine what was the most efficient way to get this oil. So yeah, the oil is not finished or producible to use. We were working out parameters and supposed to consider the manufacturers.

[157-161] This internship was also a professional environment. The team I was working with have a higher education, a lot of experience in the chemistry field. The location the lab had everything we needed. Maybe it was very messy in the lab. It feels like the lab can become messy, because it’s a lot of stuff going on. That was maybe the only downside of it. That was not professional.

[165-166] I define a professional environment according to the people around you have a high understanding and knowledge of what’s going on, and also everything you need is available.

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Amanda’s Quotes #10

[87; 104-109] I didn’t have school in the summer. Instead, I had an internship in Northern Europe, which was about the data acquisition. My role involved testing athletes who came to our lab where we have some force plates under the different movements, like squats for example. By looking at the results from the force plates, we can determine how it’s using the right leg more than the left one. So maybe he’s going to have to do more weights on the left leg to be more stable to decrease that risk of injury.

[114-119] We used force plates, like this movements with a force plate, but also with an app that is supposed to do the same thing as a force plate, but obviously it doesn’t, because the force plate is much better. Here the results you got, but you were supposed to get this result, and fix yourself. I was not a part of making it better. I was just a part of collecting the data collection team.

[122-127] The team I was a part of were the test people, so that was a very, very professional environment. We were located in a gym, so it wasn’t very professional in that sense, but it was perfect enough for what we were going to do. And the main boss, he is skilled, very educated and very smart in that sense. But he wasn’t always there because I learned very quickly what I was supposed to do so then he could use his time to do something else.

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Amanda’s Quotes #12

[170-172] Now, I’ve returned to school where I’m taking a chemistry class, chemistry lab, and a class that is called Biomechanics. Also, I’m taking Preliminary Design, which also has a lab for that one. I’m also taking classes called Instrumentation and Data Acquisition, and the lab for that class.

[177-179] In biomechanics, the professor had a lot of PowerPoint slides. We learned a lot about anatomy, and how to come combine the knowledge we already have from physics and calculate the forces and everything that can be implemented into the body system.

[130-135] Actually, I didn’t think we were going to use anything I learned from my internship, but now we have a project in Biomechanics where we are using force plates for collecting data. And that was a bit helpful, since I had used force plates during my internship. I don’t really know what we’re going to do with the data. Hopefully find out at some point.

[185-189] We used the school’s lab, which have force plates and a lot of markers that you put on yourself surrounded by a lot of cameras. The cameras will see all the markers. We can determine the movements and the forces, which is calculating the force plates, calculating the forces. So those two are combined in some way I assume.

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amanda quotes

Amanda’s Quotes #13

[192-197] Another course called Preliminary Design involves a yearlong project. I am working in a group of three, and we are designing an ankle brace that is supposed to prevent ankle sprains in soccer. In the beginning of the semester, we had lectures, which covered how you should think when you are picking out material, or how you should think when have different concepts, and the concept selection. But now later on in the semester, all those class times have just been time for us to be able to work on a project.

[200-207] I’m working in very good group. Everyone is doing what they’re supposed to do. And our goal is to have a prototype by the end of the semester, and we are using a flexible plastic called CPAs. That is supposed to allow natural range of motion and also provide forces at a higher velocity. We are 3-D printing the brace to be able to do thin, because current braces on the market are very bulky. And we have now downloaded prototype, and obviously it’s going to have to be redone because it was used the outer shell of it. So, there’s no support yet or anything.

[210-212] So when we’re getting our prototype by the end of this semester, we go ahead and do testing on it next semester. Probably redesign it to make it better than the current one on the market.

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Amanda’s Quotes #14

[374-377] We wanted to go to conference to receive some more knowledge about how we could develop our ankle brace. To attend the conference, I had to be a member of the Biomedical Engineering Society.

[390-394; 37-407] The conference consisted of interactions with the faculty. Also, we saw a lot of schools promoting their graduate program. So, it was a lot of talking about their graduating programs. But then we also had the chance to attend sessions to learn more about biomechanics. One session was about injuries in biomechanics, and it was supposed to be a one hour, and then you went to that class, but it was 15 minutes presentation. But then one could talk about ankle injuries and some can talk about concussions, or something like that. So, it’s 15 minutes per presentation during this hour.

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Amanda’s Quotes #21

[106-111] As far as senior design, last semester we were trying to develop a prototype for an ankle brace that’s supposed to prevent ankle sprains. And then this semester it’s more trying to perform testing to validate the product. So, I try to look first and improve our design on the brace because we got a prototype, but we still wanted to improve our prototype. Currently, we are conducting the testing which is basically building ankle which can do inversion and eversion. Then we will see if the brace is preventing it to rotate.

[115-122] We have three different tests in mind. The other test was a tensile test so you basically take the brace, put it in a tensile machine and the machine like drags it out and then it can get the formation curve. Also, we’re thinking about doing a fatigue test to see how many times the brace can rotate or perform before it’s going to break. That information is good to know how long would it last before the customer has to buy a new brace. But we knew we weren’t going to have time to do all three of the tests, so we decided to do the tensile testing and the first test I was talking about. That’s been a plan the whole time. We got maybe halfway or something with both of the tests.

[124-127] Maybe a bit more like 65%. But then this virus happened so now we’re not allowed to be at school or be at the lab so we’re not going to be able to perform the tensile test because that’s with a machine that was at our university. So now we’re only doing the test to test the brace itself. The one I was explaining first about where the ankle is rotating.

[132-135] Yeah, so I’m proving the design we’re doing all the time like we’re doing currently similar testing. We hope to have a prototype that we think will work in May when we’re graduating. The testing has to be complete this semester even though we’re testing when our product is not working because that’s a part of the curriculum that we had to perform some testing.

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Amanda’s Quotes #22

[315-320] We are working with a company to develop a prototype for the ankle brace. They’re very helpful, a very good company. We even had a phone conference with them so we told them what we had to get done and they can customize their product to us so it would help. Then it has been taking too long of a time producing the part compare to what they say and then to ship the part and they didn’t tell us about it. When I expect the product and it’s not there, I contact them, and they say it still hasn’t been shipped or stuff like that. So, it’s taking a very long time but every time I talk with them, they’re very helpful.

[307-311] Overall, our interactions with the company has been good. Sometimes it can feel like sometimes when we’re trying to order something, or we feel like they may not take us as serious because we are students compared to if a professional industry would order something. They are late with the parts and not really giving us an update what’s going on or why it’s late. I had to reach out to them all the time because I don’t feel as respected as it should be. And that may could be because we’re students.

[326-328] We can still develop our prototype without having their parts. It’s always like something you can do even though you don’t have what you need. But it has for sure slowed down our process because they have not met the deadlines.

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josh quotes

Josh’s Quotes #10

[75-132] I was off for five days after I came home from school. I started working at my internship. It’s two credits for the internship. I was very excited. It was very fulfilling experience. The company was very good. I was able to achieve a lot of personal goals and spend time with friends on the weekends. I went dinner with my team. My boss was not very good at communication. A lot of times I wouldn’t hear back from her for two months at a time, which is kind of hard to work with when things are time sensitive.

[137-236] I worked at a hundred years old and big company where they make couplings for piping systems. I worked in the regulatory compliance department that only have ten people. Two main projects that I was given was to evaluate a mechanical T, which is a coupling that you can put on an existing pipe to add at a branch. My job was to test them against competitors to prove that ours are superior. The second project was to evaluate some gaskets that are not traditionally used because we want to move into more diverse markets.

A lot of my internship at the beginning was understanding codes and doing research. I was able to plan the tests myself, choose the size and number of products I wanted to use. I confirmed with my supervisor, order, and wait for them. While I was waiting, another project was brought to me. It’s called CE Mark which is almost all electronics. We have these marks on our products since we are a global company. My job was to prepare and organize for an audit. I was there to help ensure that we fix gaps and got to see how the audit works. I continue to replace missing files and waiting for my other parts to come in. Once those parts came in, I was in the shop every day to cut pipe rolling to attach the couplings to pipe and assembling. Over the course of two weeks, I tested 21 assemblies and 15 gasket grains.

I think the internship prepared me to manage time and figure out what’s the best solution. I was not prepared for independence but adapting it. In school, I’m given assignments and was told what to do. Here, I was given problems to figure out how to test by myself. Neither my team leader nor my director of regulatory were there on my first day. I met with the team and started a week early. I met with one person who introduced me to everybody. Most of my interactions were with the team leader. Most days I contacted with him while I need his help. I also work with another person during the audits to go over files. I was trying to learn as we went along. The interactions were limited to my team leader, director of regulatory, and my team. Everyone always interacted with me on a personal level.

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