A Co-op Term with Midnight Sun — The Fall 2020 Experience
Due to the ongoing pandemic situation, Midnight Sun was unfortunately unable to hire co-op students in the Spring of 2020. However, we were able to return to onsite work in the Fall 2020 term with restrictions in order to keep our students, the university, and the community safe. During this period, Midnight Sun was able to provide co-op placements for two students to obtain hands-on experiences with our mechanical and electrical systems of the vehicle, and played key roles in pushing forward the manufacturing progress of our vehicle.
One of our co-op students from Fall 2020, Ricky Li, will be sharing their experiences with the team and we are pleased to say they have also joined Midnight Sun as a full team member!
Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your role on the team?
Hello, my name is Ricky Li, a Computer Engineering student in my second year. I am on the Hardware Team at Midnight Sun and my role on the team is to assist with Hardware problems such as the assembly of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and to help with any soldering needed on the team.
What influenced you to join Midnight Sun?
I saw a posting on WaterlooWorks, and it piqued my interest, so I applied hoping to gain good experience to improve my technical skills. After working at Midnight Sun for four months, I am glad I chose to work at Midnight Sun because the environment and the team members are really encouraging and are always willing to help with any problems that arise. Working at Midnight Sun was fun, and I decided to stay at Midnight Sun for future terms as a team member.
What are some of the projects you have been working on?
Some of the projects that I have been working on were assembly of multiple PCBs, wiring up the electrical mock-up and assembling the battery modules for the car. This included lots of soldering to populate the PCBs with components and connecting the PCBs together for the mock-up to be tested by the firmware team. One of the more difficult projects I worked on during the co-op term was designing a PCB. It taught me to take smaller steps in completing this task instead of rushing in without any plans. Since it was my first time making a PCB from scratch, I learned that you should not jump directly into the schematic diagram and think about everything that is needed for the schematics all at once, but instead start with a block diagram and think about one component at a time. Overall, it was a great experience designing the PCB.
What have been some challenges for you after joining the team?
The most challenging part was learning all the fundamentals of hardware and all the information of the solar car that Midnight Sun is working on. The biggest challenge was when I was assigned the task to design a PCB from scratch. It was very difficult to come up with a circuit from nothing, but I slowly got through it with the help of my team lead giving me advice through the process of developing the PCB.
How was adapting to a hybrid term? Was it difficult to work onsite with various restrictions?
Adapting to a hybrid term was not too hard because there have been guidelines made for adjusting to the hybrid term. It was a bit bothersome to be wearing masks and cleaning all surfaces that were touched before leaving, but these were necessary to keep the working environment clean and safe. Other than having to wear a mask all day, it did not affect the work that needed to be done.
What do you aspire to take away from this co-op with Midnight Sun?
I have gained a lot of great experience and learned useful technical skills that will help me in my future co-op search. Some of the technical skills that will be useful in future work includes hand-soldering components to PCBs, understanding electrical circuits, and schematics knowledge for troubleshooting PCBs. These skills are very important to get started with hardware development and build the foundation for similar hardware co-op experiences in the future. A project I will be looking forward to working on is an advanced PCB development with more difficult circuitry to get better at putting together electrical components and be able to come up with efficient solutions for hardware. It was an enjoyable experience working and meeting great people on the team.
We would like to thank both of our co-ops for their amazing work and thoughtful contributions during the Fall term.
The Fall term marked our first term back to working onsite, where we resumed manufacturing for many of the projects that we had spent the Winter and Spring semesters planning for. We hope these students were able to acquire insightful experiences during their time spent on the team and also hope that they may be able to take with them in future experiences, roles, and academics.
We look forward to working with those who have continued on to become full team members!
To learn more about UW Midnight Sun and our cars, please visit uwmidsun.com, follow our social accounts or send us an email at solar@uwmidsun.com.
