What's your day job?

[Karibou]

I'm a metallurgical engineer in a steel plant that produces hot-rolled plate material. Our plate goes into an incredible variety of cool things, including bridges, buildings, machinery, ships, and military applications. I work in quality at the rolling mill, and a lot of my job involves looking at plates that don't get produced correctly (not to customer specs, defects in/on the plate, etc), figuring out what happened to make it come out wrong, and coming up with a fix to prevent it from happening again. When I'm not doing that, I work to implement changes throughout the process to improve efficiency. I get to work around cool old machinery, get dirty, and do a lot of problem solving, and every day is something different.

[Mark Holschuh]

I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UW-Madison. I have been a Product Engineer for John Deere in Horicon, Wisconsin, for the past eight years. I have design responsibilities for engines and exhaust systems in our lawn and garden tractors, and sometimes help out with the Gators and zero-turn mowers as well. Before that I worked 25 years for Tecumseh Products Company designing engines for lawnmowers and snowthrowers.

Come to think of it, I don't really know anything about robots...

[apalrd]

I have a new job since I last posted.

I'm currently working at Williams International, working on embedded software and electronics design for commercial turbofan engines. Some of the projects I work on are certified as high as Design Assurance Level (DAL) A, the highest standard in FAA certification. In these projects, the software must be formally verified and tests are audited by the FAA.

[Jay H 237]

I work in the plastic injection molding field for a major company. I assemble robots and custom automation to handle the molded parts. The company bought out an injection molding machine (IMM) supplier and they are part of our operation now and with the material handling portion they added years ago complete turn key work cells can be purchased by customers now. We also are the OEM for robots for other companies, are logos aren't put on and thier's are but they are the same underneath, think Chevy - GMC.


The cool thing is I get to see parts, games, products and stuff months or longer before they are advertised. The weird thing is going into a store and seeing something and be like, hey I remember working on the stuff to build that months ago!

[teslalab2]

I work at a circuit board shop doing wave soldering, and circuit board repair.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by pilum40

The "coolness factor" just isn't there. LOL Thanks for the compliment. We teachers are the folks that keep the logistics train in order, keep the "suits" happy with our program, and ensure our team does not encroach on the school budget (we're totally non school funded). We'll keep those spaghetti suppers goin' and find new and goofier ways to fund raise.

Again, thanks for the compliments.

You're nuts! I'm a mechanical engineer for one of the big 3 handling block and head CNC machining and component assembly. In 14 years I want to retire and become a teacher.

[techhelpbb]

I currently live in clouds

Virtual and private computing clouds for very large enterprises.
I automate stuff in them using agile and DevOps (aka automation).
I also co-conspire on the Meetup: OpenStack for Enterprises NYC.

I run my manufacturing stuff on the side (and almost all of this stuff is used and I retrofit for my amusement):

Just got a: ShopMaster Patriot VFD CNC with DRO with Gecko 540 control (2012 model with X axis at bed center).
To add to my: Freaked CNC Seig X2 3 axis mill, MaxNC lathe with tailstock, and MaxNC 4 axis mill(s) with tailstocks and probe.
Already had 2 LPKF Protomat 92S PCB mills.
A CNC router table which can be used for drilling, milling and plasma cutting with SuperPID spindle control.
2 manual rotary indexing tables.
14 3D printers (RepRap and me are old friends).
Enough IAI actuators to build 15 XYZ chassis.
5 NEMA 23 driven XYZ tables that with ACME screws that came out of military surplus.
A pile of Mitsubishi servo motors I use for CNC and general robotics.
A complete electronics shop (surface mount and pick and place).
Rotating table 3D laser scanner.
Powder coating equipment and long wave IR heat lamps (large).
Hobart MVP210 MiG welder on cart.
Hobart LX235AC/160DC stick welder on cart.
An Evolution RAGE3 saw.
A horizontal band saw with hydraulic retrofit.
A pile of RotoZip tools.
An oxy-fuel setup.
A RobinAir vacuum pump for my HVAC work, my vacuum forming and VIM forge.
My actual propane and charcoal forges are stored right now.
A 30" bend brake.
A 12" shear, slip roller, brake.
A large double boiler for reforming machine wax.
A 1 gallon ultrasonic cleaner.
2 Large drill press (one Craftsman one an old cast round column kit from my Father).
1 2 HP 10 gallon California Air Tools air compressor.
1 80 gallon air compressor driven with a 8HP electric more and a Harley Davidson V-Twin engine.
1 old Craftsman 5 gallon air compressor.
Various machine and workbench vises and anvils.
3 generations of my Family's hand tools (including stuff to shoe horses).

Working on a 40W-60W laser cutter next with a proper exhaust system.
Working on replacing my TiG welder.
Working on adding a few more tapping accessories both at MORT and at home.

Software:

Rhinocerous I was in the Mac OSX Beta got a nice discount
MSDN
BobCAD
HSMWorks
(This could go on for pages I have been working in computers professionally since before I was 10 years old...)

Educational robots:

1 RoboRIO AndyMark chassis with hi-grip wheels, Nav-X, pneumatics, Talon-SRX ESC, Axis and Logitech cameras.
1 cRIO 4 slot AndyMark chassis with hi-grip wheels, pneumatics, Talon SR/Victor 888/Black Jaguar ESC and 2CAN.
1 cRIO 8 slot custom 80-20 chassis with hi-grip wheels, chain drive w/custom sprockets on sliding assembly.

A couple of TeachMover robotic arms.
2 RB5X robots.

I also do a little IoT on the side:

DragonBoard 410C
Intel Edison
Arduino Yun
Raspberry PI 2

Computers:

I have the better part of a stock exchange mainframe in one garage right now (400 68360 CPU on VME).
2 Mini computers.
An old VAX that is just visiting on the way to a museum.
Part of my old PDP11.
MacMini, iMac 'gumdrops' and an older PowerPC.
Commodore 64/128 I still support software on.
Amiga 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 the 4000 has the complete VideoToaster non-linear video editor with Lightwave.
A few hundred x86 PCs (laptop and desktop).

Printers:

2 HP inkjet plotters up to F size.
1 HP E size pen plotter.
1 HP C size high speed pen plotter.
3 Epson All-In-One office printers.
1 Epson R1800 13"x19" plotter with ink kit suitable archival use.


In short - I work - a lot!
I also part the technological junk pile.
Which means I am literally a digital janitor.
Now I just a need a roof over my mostly portable makerspace's head.

(This should somewhat answer the question how a managing director at a major financial institution knows manufacturing.
You know with my Associates Degree from a Community College.
When I tell people I used to make weapon systems for the military - I don't mean I had parts made in China )

[Wetzel]

I'm now at the Washington Area Bicyclists Association as the Youth and Family Education Coordinator. I organize and run bike classes in and after school, Bike Camp!, and other events.

[Basel A]

Lots of interesting jobs in this thread! I'm currently an intern at Continental Automotive (yes like the tires), working in algorithms for Advanced Driver Assistance.

[BigRickT]

I am an IT - Director of Infrastructure by day... FRC Robotics Mentor for 1259 Paradigm Shift, by night. Sleep is optional

[Legator91]

I am a engineer at GM. I was a seat Validation Engineer. I planned, performed, and documented all of the testing needed to meet federal safety requirements.

I have just moved to the Advanced Vehicle Development group at GM (Component Intergration Design Engineer). My role there is to work between design and engineering. In a nutshell I take the crazy cool designs that the studio comes up with, and turn them into somthing that meets requirments and is manufacturable.

FIRST is definitely the reason I went into engineering. Working with the mentors on 67 (HOT) as a kid really inspired me. I also got lucky enough to get hired by GM, so now I get to mentor my old team.

[BSV]

Meteorologist. I lead a research group that uses remote sensing (mostly weather radar, but also geostationary satellites and other things like lightning detection arrays) to study severe thunderstorms, tornados, hail, and the like to improve warnings of those threats to the public(s). So it's a combination of physics, CS, machine learning, social science, and a grab bag of other things.

Based on what I see from the students that apply for our jobs and work for us, if you are looking at a science career and are really good at coding up your ideas then you will go far. There is a severe lack of computing talent in the sciences.

[Chris is me]

I'm a Manufacturing Engineer at QuEST Global Services, working as an outsourcer for Pratt and Whitney. Currently I provide support and programming help for robotic automated inspection machines, which is a task I was able to get thanks to my FIRST Robotics experience. I also work on manufacturing cost estimation models for a wide variety of engine parts.

FIRST, combined with some college classes, gave me almost all of the manufacturing knowledge I had prior to starting this job, and it was immensely helpful when I was starting out.

[zcohen]

I'm a high school technology and engineering teacher. I teach Project Lead the Way Aerospace Engineering and Introduction to Engineering Design, plus I wrote the curriculum for and teach a class called intro to robotics engineering and technology of flight.
Its not always as cool as the jobs other here have, but I would never change it for anything else. Its far more enjoyable than any other career I've had and I hope I have the energy to do it for quite a few more years.

[barn34]

I have a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from Bradley University. My graduate thesis work was done in partnership with Caterpillar and focused on object detection and collision warning using automotive RADAR sensors for Motor Graders performing snow removal applications. I was also the graduate assistant for all the robotics classes, and ran the robotics lab.

Professionally, I've been working in machine research for Caterpillar for going on 11 years now - 3 as a graduate student for my thesis work, 8 as a full-time engineer. I now lead various research projects in Automation & Enterprise Solutions.

This is my 8th season as a Roboteers mentor.