Name: Rodolfo Fernandez
Hometown: Miami, FL
What is your major? Mechanical engineering
Where did you intern? What did you do there? I interned at Boeing Research & Technology in Seattle, Washington. There, I was assigned two positions. The first one was as a process engineer and my role was to characterize paints that are known to cause problems, such as flood and float, which cause pigment separation once applied onto the aircraft. These types of issues are critical because a color with different density pigments on the aircraft will cause less dense pigments to float to the surface. In the end, this may change what was meant to be the final color. The customer can then request a rework, which can be costly and time consuming for the company. To achieve my goal and solve this problem, I developed a test procedure that would allow quality control to target problems on the paints prior to the application on the aircraft in a fast and reliable way, potentially saving Boeing hundreds of thousands of dollars in time and resources.
The second position was working on automated coating application on aircraft. I supported the efforts in automation engineering and developed high-accuracy calibration methods for fast implementation on the project. This was especially demanding and showed me how much all of the things I have learned at FIU can be applied to problems I had never been exposed to before.
How did you get your internship? I attended the 2019 BEYA STEM Conference. I registered early to be able to send my resume beforehand, which provides attendees with more chances for companies to contact you before you get to the conference. That way, you can have a guaranteed interview. Read more at FIU News.
