Students get hands-on with Summer EnVision Experience

Blake Iwaisako and Zoe Tcheng work
in the EnVision Arts and Engineering
Maker Studio

 A team of five UC San Diego undergraduate students spent the summer developing a device to help TaylorMade Golf study how minute differences in the golf balls they produce affect the balls’ performance. The 10-week Summer EnVision Experience (SEE) internship brings students from across campus and from various engineering disciplines together to collaborate on a project sponsored by a partner company or organization.

SEE was designed by the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering to provide sophomore and junior students with hands-on experience creating, pitching and developing a project from start to finish. During the internship, students gain hands-on experience with the wide array of tools available in the EnVision Arts and Engineering Maker Studio. For Zoe Tcheng, a bioengineering student, SEE gave her the opportunity to develop her computer modeling skills, and ultimately confirmed her choice of major.

Ariel Navarro builds
a prototype of the
manufacturing pipeline

“I definitely got better at soldering, I soldered most of this printed circuit board here,” Tcheng said. “It was rough at the beginning but I got a lot better. And I learned some modeling, which is what I was really interested in. I learned a lot of arduino coding, which I had done in class before, but not as fleshed out as this project and not with as many components.

“What I figured out from this is that I definitely don’t want to do mechanical engineering,” said Tcheng, laughing. “The track I’m in as a bioengineer is biosystems, so we’re more kind of more electrical engineering focused. This experience reinforced that I prefer that, and enjoy the soldering and programming.”

Yichen Xiang works on electrical
components of the team's device

For electrical engineering student Ariel Navarro, SEE not only helped him develop more skills using the tools and machinery at EnVision, but helped him see the reality of their limits, as well.

“At first it was a lot of knowledge to dig into, because there are so many different things to learn; we’re 3D printing, using CAD for parts, laser cutting. It was a little overwhelming,” said Navarro. “But thankfully we were taking it one step at a time. One of the things you don’t understand until you experience it, is that a lot of machines aren’t as precise as you think. And even though it’s just a little bit off, it can throw the whole piece off. Right now for example, we have to redo a component because the hole a pipe will fit in is just a little bit too big, and the pipe is wobbling inside. So even though we measured it, it’s not always exactly precise.”

The students also said they came away with a greater understanding of what it means to collaborate as a cross-disciplinary team.

Caitlin Kim uses the laser cutter
at EnVision

“I learned a lot, especially with teamwork,” said Tcheng. “Because we were here together four days a week, for 10 weeks.”

Navarro agreed, noting that no matter how technically skilled you are, communication is still key.

“Working on a project like this, I learned to communicate,” he said. “You’ve got to make sure you’re letting people know what you’re doing and your timing. You have to maintain constant communication when you’re working with other people.”

In previous years, SEE interns have worked with the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography to develop the aquarium’s first virtual reality exhibit; a sound-matching game to share complicated whale call research with the public; and an exhibit focused on the albedo effect and an interactive RFID system. The internship was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19.