My experience

Overview

I worked to do quality control aspects for the material processing for airline materials (for Airbus and Boeing mostly). This work was pretty basic, but the cool project I worked on was finding a new way to utilize the carbon fiber scraps that were created from slitting/processing the spools of material we were sent. It was different size trims, and a basic heating mechanism for me to create and implement a DOE to find the right heating rate, cooling rate, temperature for melting, time the temperature is held, pressure applied, etc. I was able to complete the DOE and figure out all these parameters. With this design, they were the only company utilizing scraps of this size.

This company was a great way for me to learn a manufacturing environment without being stuck in a position long term. It is not a big company, but their clients are huge so the work is still extremely important. There is a little disconnect between the line workers and the head engineers, which I did not appreciate, but I know this is common. Overall, good first internship experience. It was a nice stepping stone into a side of the aerospace industry (it's HUGE).