My Time as a Manufacturing Engineering Intern at Normal, IL

The summer right after the pandemic, I got a chance to "get my hands dirty" working at Rivian's upcoming factory in Normal, IL. It was a summer of hard hats, steel toed boots, and flashy neon vests- of found family, sharing spaces, and growing up in a way college never taught me how to. I learned so much more than the technicals- how to make a bill of process, how to balance EHS requirements while staying true to demanding exec schedules, how to properly eat a deep dish pizza (sorry Chicago, I like NY style better). But by far, the most important thing I learned there was how much I loved robots and controls.

If you haven't had a chance to see a fully automated factory in it's glory, check out this video showing an inside glimpse into Rivian's plant (the part that I worked on comes around 1:43). Notice how synchronized all the machinery is, how melodic its dance-like movement. It took months of hard work, back and forths between minor changes from the design team and tweaks from the controls engineers to get it to that state of seeming perfection, and even during my role as essential intermediary I knew it was that large scale coordination I wanted to make happen. Maybe it's the dancer in me, and maybe this view is a little romantic- but looking back, I appreciate that summer as the one that set me on this winding, insanely challenging but fun path towards robotics and where I am today, and all the steps I will take in the future. Here's to Rivian, who set off my adventure- and here's to many more ahead.

s P.S: another thing I discovered, albiet a few months after the internship- that I love pointing at things in the real world and saying "I worked on that". It's so pretentious and I'm sure my friends hate it but oh well.