Day two began with a meeting in the “Pacific Ocean” conference room. This was a huge meeting for Dr. Rai, as she was presenting her current project, in front the heads of Pentair, in order for some funding. There were several high-ranking members present for the meeting, through call, and Dr. Rai did a great job! The conference call had people from all across the nation. It was exciting to see how the high-ranking members would poke and prod at the protentional projects, and how the presenters would stand by their ideas. It was also neat to see that Pentair also uses Lync, just like CA, and they also had the same fears as we do. What if someone lync’s me during my presentation??I After the conference meeting, Dr. Rai and I headed back to her work space and began talking about what was next for me. Because I can’t legally aid any actual business at Pentair, Dr. Rai has given me a side project to work. Building on my exploration of solid works from yesterday, she has tasked me with creating a “Geneva Mechanism”, which is unique gear which turns intermittently, it will rotate, then stop, then rotate automatically, pretty neat. This type of mechanism is used in watches and other objects that require a motor, but not constantly.
After explaining my project, Dr. Rai walked me through the Pentair project process and how my process should mirror theirs. The process is longer than I expected, but thorough and seems to be quite effective. For me, I began by figuring out the dimensions of my product. Before I could start my project, I joined Dr. Rai in her meeting with some of her project team members down in Florida. The meeting was shorter than the one in the morning and was just a weekly check-up on operations. Next, I began to create the mechanism in solid works. I learned more skills on the software and it became even more complex than yesterday. I did notice, however, that I was starting to understand the basics of the software and was getting quicker and quicker. In the time left in the day, I was able to create 3 of the key pieces necessary for the mechanism, progress I am quite proud of!