My last week in Porto Alegre was definitely bittersweet. I was certainly ready to see family and enjoy a few weeks of summer, but I knew I would miss all of the people I have met at TECNOPUC and PUCRS.
Monday morning I started printing a version of the bottom of the case on the nice Objet 3D printer. There wasn’t any black material so I used white, which I know won’t be as nice as a prototype since it will stand out from the existing Slice modules. Nonetheless, I figured it was best to make an Objet version of the case since it prints much more cleanly and the support material comes off better so that my team can see what a higher quality prototype would look like. If they like it, they can always ask the technicians at FreeZone about buying black material. When the print finished Tuesday morning, I started the top half and cleaned off the support material of the bottom. With the Objet, the support material is a difference substance than the main print and it is much softer and almost gel-like. I started by scraping off large excesses of support and then the technician washed the rest off in the water jet. Wednesday morning when the top half had finished (yet another 42 hours print…), I repeated the cleaning process, but this time I got to use the water jet for myself. I guess this is an indication of how weak I am, but after the 30 minutes of holding the water jet hose, when I went back to my office my forearm was shaking and I had to use my left arm to drink.
Wednesday afternoon I gave my introduction to CAD workshop to my team members (including Juliane and Guilherme). First I talked through the power point I had made, and then, using the tools from the power point, everyone worked on CADing the hands on project I had made. It was almost everyone’s first time using a 3D CAD software, and I think they enjoyed it! Even this simple project made it apparent that there is never only one way to create a given part in CAD. At one point I had to explore the settings of the shell function to see if it could do what we needed because some people were trying to use that tool even though I had just made the part with an extruded cut. And indeed, the shell tool worked—you learn something new every day! After everyone finished, we went down to FreeZone so that everyone could see the printers and meet the technicians. We ended up waiting the entire time for the printer to heat and then watched the little part print for the full 25 minutes. We printed Rafael’s because he had personalized it by adding his name, and I think he was very interested in watching exactly how the 3D printer worked.
Friday was kind of sad knowing that it was my last day. I finished cleaning out my desk in the morning and most of the afternoon was spent on goodbyes. My boss Franco came in to say goodbye and we all chatted for a little while. Right before I left I walked over to say goodbye to my old cubicle neighbors, and even that made me feel a little sad. I really enjoyed the work I did interning with HP Inc, but more than anything I am really going to miss the people I worked with. Everyone I met in the office was so friendly, whether they were my team members that I spent everyday with or people from other parts of the office who I ran into in the break room or elevator. I can’t imagine feeling more welcomed into a two month internship than I did here. So thank you HP Brazil!
My Team
Left to right: André, Rafael, Me, Giuseppe, Franco