Hi! I’m Keegan Heaton and spending my summer at Colorado University Boulder’s Aerospace Engineering Sciences building for the next four weeks! In this Internship, I’ll be learning the trade associated with Machinists. This means I’ll get to use simple and advanced-level machinery and model parts using CAD Programs. CAD programs are 3D modeling programs that act as the brains of the machines, telling the machine exactly what to do. Some of the machinery introduced in my internship include CNC (Computer Nominal Control), lathe, and mill. There are different machines than these, but I haven’t been taught how to operate such machinery.
I arrived in Boulder Saturday, June 4, and walked around the main campus so I could look at the architecture and beautiful scenery. The Main Campus, where I spent most of my time roaming Saturday, had marvelous architecture and awe-inspiring scenery. The building that caught my attention the most was the engineering building seemingly in the middle of campus. It had a different style and rustic feeling, adding to the whole experience. On Monday, I was given a tour of the Aerospace Engineering Sciences building and the four levels contained within it. The bottom floor contained all the machinery and classrooms for lectures and group projects. My internship is in AERO 155, otherwise known as the machine shop. The first floor is the administrative floor where all the staff lives. All the professor’s rooms are on this floor and the administrative office is easily accessible as well. From the second floor to the fourth are all research labs. These labs are used for different sciences under the umbrella of Aerospace and Aerodynamics. Additionally, companies like BioServe, an aerospace company with the goal of long-term human life in space, have their research and part creation done on the second and base floors. Furthermore, the second floor has a command center for the international space station, which researchers use to communicate with astronauts and conduct experiments! I was able to see the live feed of the astronauts and the space view of the earth! Nothing changes on the third and fourth floors; they both have research labs with wet chemical labs. On Tuesday, I helped the teacher’s assistant, Shay, with preparing for the next two semesters. I helped sort parts and packages while keeping inventory of what else they had to prepare for. We also cleaned out the old coolant from one of the CNC machines. The process is done once every two years and bacteria start to grow on the coolant even though it has antibacterial properties. Both the smell and texture of the coolant were like pumpkin guts. It wasn’t fun at all, but it was a necessary process in order to keep the bacteria under control. On Wednesday, we finished up the coolant project and refilled the coolant tank before I collected my student ID with Nate, my other mentor, during lunch. After lunch, I worked with Zach, a postgraduate, to create parts for a potato cannon he’s making. We machined it out of an aluminum scrap piece and used the mill to shape the block and bore the holes. On Thursday, I actually got to CNC a part with my mentor Nate. The project was for the research department and we needed to make a pair of aluminum parts for a part machine. The precision was crazy; it wasn’t off by a hundredth of an inch. Sadly, the edge finder was broken and incorrectly placed the tool, incorrectly, machining the part. We only found that the edge finder was broken after it had exploded in the machine.
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