Senior Projects

This past week was my first week with Micah Roufa at Tri-Co inc. Tri-Co is a general contractor that renovates and builds schools. The current project is a $22 million renovation and addition to Maplewood High School. Micah is the Project Manager so I am following him as he coordinates all the subcontractors and deals with all the issues that arise. I spent most of the week helping Micah log subcontractor data and taking pictures of all work that is performed on site as well as sitting in on meetings with subcontractors and representatives from the school district. I also helped with some manual labor whenever it was needed.

My last week at Fred Weber was a weird one because I was sick one day and I had two all day golf tournaments for school CD. I spent Tuesday and Thursday finishing up the competitors list for the VP. Overall, I’m really happy with how the four weeks at Fred Weber went and I’m grateful for everyone who spent their time teaching everything about what Fred Weber does.

The first three days of my internship at Meramec state park have been different than I expected. The first day, I got a tour of the park from my boss Mr.Fink. The second half of the day I loaded up some wood with one of my other bosses (Carrie) and we drove to a neighboring park called Onondaga. We had extra wood left over from the off season so we gave it to Onondaga. The second day of my Internship me and Carrie spent most of the morning picking up trash scattered around the park. We also replaced a sign that somebody had run over. the second half of the day we hauled more wood to Onondaga and I got to drive some trucks around over there, because they needed an extra driver. On the third day, I spent the first half mulching with Carrie around the park. We have to mulch the campground because the grass on some of the campsites wont grow back. When the grass doesn’t grow back it just ends up muddy, and nobody wants to stand in mud. We use the mulch to cover the mud so it looks better and people have something to stand on. In the Afternoon Carrie had to leave so I was mulching by myself. I got to drive the trucks around and I think everyone was impressed with how hard I worked at the end of the day.

As I solve harder and harder problems my brain can get fried. The problem solving can be fun, but I can’t sit and code for more than an hour and a half at a time without it taking a mental toll. I need to take quite a few breaks durring the day. It’s hard but I’m still figuring it out. I don’t know everything there is to know. In my mind, this is just part of the learning process

CodeAbbey is significently harder than Discovery. I really just learned the consepts in Discovery while CodeAbbey is testing me on what I know. The problem solving aspect requires critical thinking. Luckly both were Python 3 so I didnt have to change what I already understood. The problem I’m working on now is programing the computer to count vowels. CodeAbbey is chalenging, but in a good way. It’s chalenging is the sense of learning.

day 13- That day I worked in the front office again with Taylor. I learned about the crash of their old website called quick books. The crash of this website screwed up their whole system and made everything hard to manage. I also learned how to work their new website called NetSuite.

day 14- On the 14th day at pem racing I spent most of it taking calls and doing a lot of the other things I had learned at the front office. At the end of the day they gave me some shirts and other things and told me they were very happy I had worked there and that I could come back anytime, which made me feel very good about the work I did.

My time at Freeport draws to a close today and so everything is wrapping up. The sprint finished Wednesday and so we had a meeting then to analyze the data for the team’s performance and plan for this next sprint. I’ve really learned a lot from this internship, looking back. Cybersecurity seemed a little intimidating, like hacking and quasi-legal activities, but it’s turned out to be a normal corporate job. It has reaffirmed my career goals, but also shown I could make cyber work either on the side or as a minor.

Tomorrow, on Saturday, I start at Bread Co. and I’ll be there for the next two weeks.

On Monday I spent the whole day researching competitors for a quarry in Texas and compiling the data in a spreadsheet.

On Tuesday I went with Ken Kampman to the Hannibal Limestone Strip Mine. We spent the day 400 feet underground setting metal pinsk in the ground. These pins are used by the miners to ensure that they are mining in the exact grid pattern that is on the plans. Without these reference points, it is very likely that they would not mine in straight lines as it is easy to lose a sense of direction underground

On Wednesday I went with Dennis Sullens, the safety guy at FW. We went to the Festus FracSand Mine and the Herculaneum Loading Docks. This mine was really cool and we got to see the operation from blasting the sandstone all the way to loading the barges with it.

I spent Thursday with Ken mapping the Festus mine to measure how much material had actually been removed.

Good Friday is a holiday at New Frontier and FW so I had Friday off.

day 11: worked in the assembly room all morning talking to the workers in there about their other jobs and how much they work. After Lunch I was moved around the shop basically all day based on where I was needed.

day 12: I spent the whole day engraving plates with the companies logo on them with the cnc machine. I got to see a meeting where the owner of the store showed some of their suppliers around their shop to see where their products were going. There was talk about me getting to work as a receptionist during the last week because one of the receptionists will be out for the whole week.

day9: I spent the morning working on the cnc machine, and helped with shipping in the afternoon. I learned more about my coworkers and was talking to them a bit more about their lives and interests.

day10: On the tenth day of my internship I ended up spending the whole morning with the shipping department. I learned how to package third members. Which are a piece that goes inside your differential. The shipping people showed me how to use this liquid foam that poofs up once it is sprayed out and looks really fun to play with.