I had the opportunity to participate in the Maintenance and Reliability Internship (MARI) workshop this past J term where I was able to develop hands-on skills. The workshop taught me the importance of maintenance and reliability through lectures, hands-on activities, and a week long design project. 

We started off the first week with the company Reliability Solutions bringing in some machines for us to look at while they taught us the importance of maintenance and how to keep machines in a precision state. They first had us check out a pump system and try to identify potential problems, which we did not know much about yet. Then throughout the week they taught us how to use a range of equipment spanning from a simple wrench to vibration analysis sensors. I found their lectures very informative and I really enjoyed how they made sure that everyone in the class got to gain hands-on experiences with their equipment and on the machines. 

By the end of the week I was able to identify many different issues with the machines that I did not know about at the beginning of the week. The entire week my group and I were talking about how loud one specific motor was, and I thought that's just what the motor sounds like, but on the last day we got to put all of our knowledge to the test and perform an alignment on the motor where we were able to bring the motor to a precision state. I thought they did a great job teaching us, but also letting us figure things out for ourselves. 

The next week had a variety of different speakers come in, and the two that stood out to me the most were Dr. Butkus and Dr. Hamilton. Dr. Butkus taught us about the Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster, which he personally investigated. He walked us through the entire investigative process and let us come up with hypotheses of why it happened, which I enjoyed. Dr. Hamilton then taught us about the Great Molasses Flood, and even brought in molasses cookies for us. I thought these topics tied in well to the theme because it made me realize how important maintenance and reliability truly is. 

The last week was the most fun yet stressful. We had Karl Reiff come in to help us design and build a conveyor belt. This was a very unique experience because normally in classes we only get to go through the design and modeling process, but we were able to see our design come to life. Once we had our design and the parts were ordered, Karl taught us how to use the machines in the shop and even taught us how to weld.

We spent the last few days cutting, drilling holes, and welding our frame together. We even got to spray paint the frame hot pink and we named it BARBEE (Belt actuated retrieval bridge, electronically energized). Throughout the project we hit many road bumps, but I would prefer to call them learning experiences. Karl did a great job supporting us while still letting us learn from our mistakes. The last day we put BARBEE together and got her to run. There were slight issues with the belt, but overall it was a success. 

Going into MARI I was not sure what to expect, and I honestly thought it was going to be a boring three weeks. I was very surprised about how much fun I had while learning all kinds of information that I will be able to take with me to my internship and my future career. It was great spending time with the other students in the workshop and going from strangers the first week to having plenty of inside jokes by the end of the workshop. I would recommend MARI to any engineering student that is interested in getting hands-on learning experience before their internship.