My internship is at the local Durango Discovery Museum. It is a museum that is dedicated to teaching children about science in unique and creative ways. The organization is a destiny of learning for many families and features plenty of hands-on stations and experiments to teach children about robotics, chemistry, physics, and more.
My mentor is executive director Ashley Wagner. What she can offer me at my internship site are all of the supplies for my project that I need. Those being their 3-D printer, plastic to use it with, and proper safety equipment. My project is dedicated to helping this organization to get their 3-D printer working in a way that the children who visit the museum can create their own figurines or toys digitally that can then be printed out physically.
I came to intern at the Discovery Museum site for reasons that I am not entirely satisfied with. My original internship tied back to what I wanted to pursue both academically and professionally. That being programmin. It was a very unique opportunity for me as Durango is not an easy town to locate internships or careers that deal with computer science and programming. Unfortunately, my original mentor received a job offer in California and moved, forcing me to choose a new internship out of a list that had nothing that I was as interested in as my original internship. Eventually, I decided to do my internship at the Discovery Museum because I had heard that they needed help with their 3-D printer. I went for this because I had known what 3-D printers are beforehand and had wanted to use one for a while, but was unable to because of their high cost and rarity in the general public. 3-D modeling still ties back to what my professional goal is which is interactive video software development, so in the end things still worked out even though I may not be completely happy with the situation.
My project is very straightforward and simple. My goal is to use the software that the 3-D printer came with to create small plastic toys that the printer can then print out. The purpose of this is to allow kids who feel like they are in the same situation as I am in find a way to pursue what they want to pursue. That situation being frustration that they live in such a small, isolated town that they can't pursue the latest technological advancements in their education.
In order to prepare for this project, I have pursued an independent study in programming. I have been using what little, few minutes that I have had dedicated to school work after taking care of important subjects like math, history, english, and chemistry to research into how 3-D modelling both works and how to do it. Since it has been such little time, I have not been able to dedicate nearly as much time into it as I would like to.
In order for me to complete this project, I need to take three relatively simple steps. The first being learning the software and the inner workings of the printer. This is so that I am very familiar with how it functions and how to address any issues that may come up. The second step would be taking my gained knowledge and developing a simple to learn/understand guide to it for any staff that are stationed at the printer. With this, I can ensure that things can run as smoothly as possible. Finally, I would take the knowledge and develop a short and simple guide to how to use the software for the children to use. This is what the whole project orbits around.
No comments:
Post a Comment