Senior Projects

Today was very slow compared to the other days because two of the three marketing people were out all day on house calls.  Before a resident comes to visit Gambrill, the marketing department visits them in their home (or out at a restaurant) to give them the 4-1-1.

So, I sat in Debra’s office (the director of marketing) and answered the phone and took messages all day.  It was pretty boring because I did not get to walk around much and I was very isolated in her office.

The only exciting thing that happened was when a lady brought in a strange animal (called a Mara) that is native to Argentina.  Picture below:

For this week, Michael who is the senior accountant of Semco taught me all the formulas that they use to create expense budgets. I did a fair amount of practice with the calculations of the standard cost, fixed cost, and etc. One of the issue that I encountered was that it was really hard to gather all the necessary information, since they exist separately and Semco keeps changing the information such as the Center Cost.

Another thing I accomplished on Tuesday was the excel work for the organization the data of a huge number of material consumption and cost. It took me three days.

Things at Formlabs have just been going swimmingly.  I learned yesterday how to print and wash and after much trial and error I actually got a good part that turned out pretty well.  Now you might be wondering Elliott what is entailed in washing a part, well I’m glad you asked.  After the part is printed it is really sticky and is covered in the liquid form of the resin it is made out of which is really gross and stains everything.  To remedy that you have to bathe it in hydrogen peroxide for about 15 minutes which cleans off all the liquid resin and makes your part clean and useable.

Today I assembled optic boards for the laser in the printers and superglued my screwdriver to the table multiple times.  I also learned that industrial grade super glue is no joke.  Tomorrow I will be assembling some other parts for the printer and hopefully I will get to take one apart.

nothing about this project is turning out to be like what I originally proposed but I think that’s still okay cause I’m getting stuff done and having fun doing it.

Today I spoke with a couple people who I’d originally considered interviewing but ultimately decided not to. I also scheduled more interviews and kept writing the reflective piece that hopefully will take shape by Thursday. Lastly, I baked an apple pie. It was good even though the crust was way too thin.

I will be at Our Lady’s Inn (a home in St. Charles County for pregnant, homeless women and their children) this and next week.

I had a short orientation yesterday and learned how the house works. I’ve enjoyed getting to know the staff and the residents. I helped out in the office and kitchen.

Today, I played with some of the kids and did odd jobs. It sounds boring but I’m always busy and love that everything I do is directly helping the mothers I’ve met.

 

 

Yesterday we looked at a potential flip house for Rhonda and her contractor partner, Jeff. The house was absolutely disgusting: most of the ceiling had fallen, there was asbestos in the floor, and mold on the boards in the ceiling. She sees potential in it, so she might buy it. We also went to a client’s house to look at some cracks in the walls upstairs. We called a structural engineer to look at it and it turns out that the front of the house had sunk into the ground due to badly placed drains, causing the cracks. He thought it would cost about $45,000 to repair.

Today, we checked up on Rhonda’s current flip house which is close to being done. Now they’re just shining the floors, power washing the deck, and cleaning the windows for the inspector who was coming later that day. We then went back to her office and she worked on her designs while I went on AutoCAD and made a layout for the deck that she had me measure. I’m starting to get the hang of AutoCAD. I also read part of the book about architecture that she gave me.

I’ve just finished a second day of teaching gym classes. I arrive at school at around 8:30-9:00 to set up anything I’ll be using during the lessons, which are centered around basketball. In the AM I had two 1st-3rd grade classes today, and then the preschool class (all in one consecutive run). I had a dribbling obstacle course for these classes, we worked on passing with monkey in the middle, and then I let them play basketball against each other for about ten minutes. The preschoolers are one of my most difficult classes because they’re attention spans are extremely short, there are a lot of them, and they aren’t aware of their ability to knock each other down or drop a basketball on each others skulls. At one point yesterday I found myself intervening as a preschooler sat on his friend’s face.

The biggest difficulty I have encountered is the weather. To capture stunning moments and images theres usually needs to be a diverse amount of color such as my Tampa Bay trail post, since it is 30 out this can be difficult especially if it is cloudy….

During the First week interning in Semco Plastic, I did a few projects and watched several board meetings.

The projects I did included some excel work, reading several documents, and some regular office work. One of the most important things I have learned from these projects is the standard cost system for a plastic molding company like this. I learned how they use those special formulas that they created to set a profitable, but still reasonable price to compete in the market.

For this week, I will probable do more projects with excel and read more documents to learn how they manage the company to succeed.

Today was the first day of my second week at Gambrill.  This week I will be shadowing the marketing department.

Today, I assembled information packets all morning, helped Cathy with a bracelet making activity before lunch, and learned how to inspect a room before a new resident moves in.

I learned that there are about one or two residents moving in each week this month, so the ladies I am working with (Danielle, Debra, and Gwen) are very busy inspecting rooms and communicating with the incoming resident(s) to ensure that everything is as they requested.