Research

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

January 2025 - February 2025

The Experience

Normal Tasks:

• During my first and second years of college, I had participated in two different research projects under the same faculty member teaming up with an electrical group for one and then joining their research lab for the other. 

• For the first, I primarily did the thermal testing of materials bonded together at different temperatures. In this role, I went through the actual testing, as well as designing additions to the testing setup to make the test results more accurate and reproducible. This is where I first learned how to use SolidWorks, which I had to partially teach myself to be successful in this role.

• The second project I participated was centered around graphical analysis of melt pools in a material formed by laser powder bed fusion. My role was to recreate the microscopic images of different melt pool samples in Photoshop, then use different software to binarize and graphically analyze the data. This project remains unfinished.

Challenges:

• Since I'd only completed a semester of college before starting the first research project, I ended up having to teach myself a lot of skills required in these projects, the primary one being SolidWorks. Looking back, it should not have taken as long as it did to design an L bracket with a slot. Still, I managed to design the pieces needed to make the test bench work.

Learnings

Skills:

• Along with SolidWorks, these research projects involved learning how to use many different software like StructuralGT and Adobe Photoshop. While I did not become proficient in any of these from these projects, I now have a foothold to continue learning and improve my skills with them, just as I did with SolidWorks during my internship.

Future Applications

Career Impact:

• Moving into my career, I would love to make it so research is still a part of it, even if it's small. I'd like to work my way to design or test engineering, both of which require learning and problem solving throughout each project, which is something very important to me. 

• I don't believe I'd be fulfilled if I worked a job with tasks that just repeat with little new developments, especially when it's as gratifying as it is to discover these new developments.