Through my education and my extracurriculars, I have learned one very important lesson: when working with robots, prepare to be surprised. Now, hear me out, this isn’t a sign of bad engineering or an indicator that you’ve done something wrong; it is simply a part of life. As we all know, technology can be unpredictable. My internship at Indium Corporation thus far has allowed me to gain new experience through working with manufacturing robots. However, my motto has stayed the same: always expect the unexpected.
As the Robotics Intern at Indium Corporation, I was able to expand my horizons when working with robots and move out of my comfort zone. Previously, I had only ever worked on small-wheeled robots, and my programs were all written line by line, describing exactly how the robot should move. My most exciting hands-on project before this internship was on the Binghamton University Rover Team. Over the course of a year, my team collaboratively designed and built a mock Mars rover for a competition in Utah. Even though this was a fairly large project and involved some similar knowledge and skills, the robotics experience at Indium Corporation was on a different level.
今年夏天，我一直在使用大型制造机器人，我的程序是在人机界面（HMI）上完成的。这主要包括点击正确的按钮和添加正确的参数，比听起来要复杂得多。虽然这种编程方式与我习惯的编程方式不同，但我逐渐意识到，其核心逻辑是相同的。无论程序的形式如何，成功的关键在于像机器人一样思考！你必须仔细考虑每一个步骤，甚至是那些人类容易忽略的琐碎步骤。
学习一种新的编程方法是一个非常有趣和有意义的过程，通过这个过程，我的专业知识得到了拓展，远远超出了我最初的预期。在这十周里，我研究了机器人令人兴奋的新部件，甚至还学习了一些计算机视觉知识！计算机视觉包括使用机器人上的摄像头分析图像的某些特征。就我的角色而言，我利用它来定位我试图处理的部件。机器人有几种不同的视觉程序，每一个新部件都需要对这些程序进行调整。关于如何进行调整，有明确的指导和说明，但与往常一样，你应该预料到有些工作不会按照你想要的方式进行。几乎在我做的每个部件上，一开始都会出现一些奇怪的情况，我需要做出相应的调整。出乎意料的是，这并没有让我感到沮丧，反而让我通过不断的练习和试错，对我的工具有了更透彻的了解，如果第一次一切顺利的话，我是不可能做到这一点的。
此外，作为项目的一部分，我的任务是制作教程视频，介绍如何为机器人上的新部件编程。我必须说，我是一名工程师，完全没有视频编辑经验。虽然一开始任务很艰巨，但关键是要一步一步来。因此，我首先计划了如何组织视频，然后从写脚本开始。然后，我熟悉了用来录制和编辑视频的软件。这部分肯定是我的项目中最出乎意料的，但我也发现学习新知识是一件有趣和令人兴奋的事情。
All in all, I’ve gained so much during my time here at Indium Corporation, and it has truly given me a way to move beyond what I’ve learned in the classroom. Being able to learn new things, even video editing, has been a wonderful experience, through which I’ve had so much fun while finding myself growing tremendously as an engineer. Moving out of my comfort zone has taught me even more about expecting the unexpected, and I’ve enjoyed every second of it.
