Rob Get's an Intern

Oh the possibilities! Until I read over our HR policy. Apparently I can't have my intern get my coffee, my dry cleaning, do all the day to day monotonous things I have to do including what I have him work on. I have to give this guy a real project. Phftsht! Whatever! That's not how my internship went, man kids these days are soft.

Just kidding! Back away from the HR complaint. I actually have an awesome project for him to work on and one that he has already jumped all over. We have a great high school summer internship program here in the Lake Oswego office. I stress the Lake O office because we don't do it in all of our locations. There is one HUGE caveat for being considered part of the high school internship program here - you have to be an active member of a FIRST Robotics team here in the Portland, OR area. Why? Just meet a FIRST student and you will know in seconds how energetic and focused these kids can be when they are tasked with something.

So, of course one of my jobs here at The 'Desk is to do a little evangelism. You know, product awareness, a tutorial here and there, customer visits and all that stuff you guys keep watching on my YouTube channel. Anyway, last year I was asked to take a larger role in our Autodesk Oregon FIRST Regional, and the lead up to it. As part of that I participated in both mentor training and student training on how to use Autodesk Inventor as part of their FRC challenge. 

What came out of that was clear. First, you can't scale that. Second, you can't teach anybody much of anything in a couple hours except for what it "could" do if I had more time to train you on how to do it. This is where my intern came in to play. Dude is the type of kid that you want your kids to be when they reach high school. Super smart, self starter, selfless, and a few bonus points from this old football player - he's the team's leading tackler at linebacker.

So this was my guidance from him this morning: We want to create an Autodesk FIRST Robotics learning program created by FIRST students, for FIRST students, on how to utilize Autodesk design tools to solve the unique challenges presented via the FRC challenge. Tall order for a college grad, let alone an incoming high school senior. But I have the utmost confidence in his ability to exceed my expectations. He's already working out the storyboard and coming up with ideas that we haven't thought of yet.

So, if you have any advice / thoughts around what you would like to see included in this program now is your chance to chime in and give him some guidance. Follow him on Twitter @NatetheIntern he'll be posting up his thoughts on his project, insights into FRC and how design tools can be used in the competition, working for me... [grin]

So give him a follow, feel free to give him some thoughts on what you think FRC students need to know about using design tools during the FRC competition.

-Rob

 

Comments

[Johan M]

where is Garin Gardiner ......
episode in 3 parts...(or assembly)