here i am in my third week in penang. so, where to start?
well, work started out to be rather boring, and then i started to be busy (which was way cooler than being bored) and now, i'm back to being bored again. and guess wat? i'm blogging from the office.... =)
so, a little bit on agilent. well, agilent is a spin-off of hewlett-packard company with it's headquarters in palo alto. agilent's number one business is on test and measurement instruments. somehow, agilent, avago, hp, lumileds and philips is connected. but i dunno how. i tried finding out and the sequence is something like agilent (test and measurement) is the child of hp, avago (semicon) is the child of agilent and lumiled (leds) was a part of agilent which was sold to philips. something like that.
anyway, seeing the core business of agilent, i didn't really look forward to having my vacation training here. i mean, wat's a mechanical engineer gotta do in a electronics based factory right? i couldn't be more wrong. knowing that i was in the control test division, i figured i had to troubleshoot some instruments or do some reliability test. instead, i was put in the packaging department where the department is in charge of designing boxes! yes... boxes...
i wasn't too thrilled on my first day either. designing boxes? packaging? come on... but as i learned more about the job, it gets more interesting. we actually use a 3d software - cocreate onespace designer which is my field of interest (i really enjoy 3d design and modeling, no idea why), and we dun just design boxes... we do all sorts of mechanical drawings. the software used is similar to proengineer (the one used in uniten) but a little bit more tricky and not as user friendly. it doesn't really matter though, i've always wanted to know wat it would be like to have a job in designing. although wat i had in mind was on a much bigger scale (cars maybe?) boxes and electronic parts isn't such a bad start.
so the first week in front of the pc was a torture. just sitting in front of the monitor from 8 to 5 everyday learning the software is the sole definition of boredom. but there were moments of fun as well when they had an experiment on one of the boxes which was designed. before i say anything further, let me clarify - wat they design isn't just boxes but also the foams and fillers which is supposed to support and protect the instruments in the box. so, back to the experiment. it's called the drop test where the instrument would be packed as for shipping, placed on a hydraulic arm, raised to a certain height and dropped. an accelerometer would be mounted on the instrument beforehand so that readings could be taken.
the experiment is rather simple but there is something about dropping a package of about 20+kgs from 4 feet which excites me... hehehe...
after that, during my second week, i was really busy with loads of drawings to complete, so during the second week, work was rather interesting... but at the start of this week, there's not much to do... and i am required to write the reports for the drop tests which kinda feels like i'm back in uni... plus, my supervisor is asking me to do a project write-up, some sort of presentation which compares the old packaging method and the new packaging method. i roughly get wat he wants, but there's one prob - i dunno anything bout the old or new method. i've been given the deadline at the end of my 12 weeks, so that gives me some time to scratch my head, looking for an answer.
up till today, i've done several mech drawings, 4 drop tests and reports, started on the outline of my project write-up and some odd jobs (checking stock, going to the warehouse, inspection on foams etc). not as bad as i thought it would be. i just hope it stays that way. well, i've gotta get back to work now... till next time, bye...
well, work started out to be rather boring, and then i started to be busy (which was way cooler than being bored) and now, i'm back to being bored again. and guess wat? i'm blogging from the office.... =)
so, a little bit on agilent. well, agilent is a spin-off of hewlett-packard company with it's headquarters in palo alto. agilent's number one business is on test and measurement instruments. somehow, agilent, avago, hp, lumileds and philips is connected. but i dunno how. i tried finding out and the sequence is something like agilent (test and measurement) is the child of hp, avago (semicon) is the child of agilent and lumiled (leds) was a part of agilent which was sold to philips. something like that.
anyway, seeing the core business of agilent, i didn't really look forward to having my vacation training here. i mean, wat's a mechanical engineer gotta do in a electronics based factory right? i couldn't be more wrong. knowing that i was in the control test division, i figured i had to troubleshoot some instruments or do some reliability test. instead, i was put in the packaging department where the department is in charge of designing boxes! yes... boxes...
i wasn't too thrilled on my first day either. designing boxes? packaging? come on... but as i learned more about the job, it gets more interesting. we actually use a 3d software - cocreate onespace designer which is my field of interest (i really enjoy 3d design and modeling, no idea why), and we dun just design boxes... we do all sorts of mechanical drawings. the software used is similar to proengineer (the one used in uniten) but a little bit more tricky and not as user friendly. it doesn't really matter though, i've always wanted to know wat it would be like to have a job in designing. although wat i had in mind was on a much bigger scale (cars maybe?) boxes and electronic parts isn't such a bad start.
so the first week in front of the pc was a torture. just sitting in front of the monitor from 8 to 5 everyday learning the software is the sole definition of boredom. but there were moments of fun as well when they had an experiment on one of the boxes which was designed. before i say anything further, let me clarify - wat they design isn't just boxes but also the foams and fillers which is supposed to support and protect the instruments in the box. so, back to the experiment. it's called the drop test where the instrument would be packed as for shipping, placed on a hydraulic arm, raised to a certain height and dropped. an accelerometer would be mounted on the instrument beforehand so that readings could be taken.
the experiment is rather simple but there is something about dropping a package of about 20+kgs from 4 feet which excites me... hehehe...
after that, during my second week, i was really busy with loads of drawings to complete, so during the second week, work was rather interesting... but at the start of this week, there's not much to do... and i am required to write the reports for the drop tests which kinda feels like i'm back in uni... plus, my supervisor is asking me to do a project write-up, some sort of presentation which compares the old packaging method and the new packaging method. i roughly get wat he wants, but there's one prob - i dunno anything bout the old or new method. i've been given the deadline at the end of my 12 weeks, so that gives me some time to scratch my head, looking for an answer.
up till today, i've done several mech drawings, 4 drop tests and reports, started on the outline of my project write-up and some odd jobs (checking stock, going to the warehouse, inspection on foams etc). not as bad as i thought it would be. i just hope it stays that way. well, i've gotta get back to work now... till next time, bye...