Hi everyone! My name is Victoria, and I am going into my Junior year studying Electrical & Computer Engineering. This summer, I spent three months in Moline, Illinois interning at John Deere. Having only ever lived in California my whole life, living in the Midwest was definitely a new experience for me.
My role at John Deere this summer was as a Product Engineer in the Embedded Software sector of the Combine department. What’s a combine???, you may ask. Up until a couple of months ago, I also did not know what it was. A combine is an enormous crop harvesting machine that makes the lives of farmers significantly easier by combining multiple steps needed in order to efficiently harvest crops and ensure no part of it goes to waste. One of the coolest moments of my internship was being able to drive a Tractor and Combine and earn my Level 1 certificate.
Throughout the summer, I worked on a Training box and two projects that I would eventually present in front of my peers and colleagues at the end of my internship. The purpose of the training box was to familiarize myself with the terms and topics my team uses in their day-to-day tasks. It taught me how to work with complex embedded systems and I was eventually able to use one of John Deere’s non-position indicating handles to control the acceleration of a motor. For my first main project, I was tasked with creating a controller health monitoring tool using an Arduino Teensy. Completing this project, I was able to connect my tool to a Combine and display the health of the different controllers controlling it. Finally, for my second project, I created a graphic user interface that allows engineers dealing with defects to input a log and see all the controller details needed to fix those defects. The purpose of my projects were to help John Deere engineers identify defects and eliminate the weeks of work needed in order to come up with a solution.
Not only did my internship give me the opportunity to learn more about embedded systems and how to use my engineering skills in industry, it also allowed me to make friends with other students from around the nation, connect with engineers with decades of experience, and get out of my comfort zone.
I never would have imagined engineering to get me to a small town in Illinois, but I have learned how important it is to keep an open mind and put yourself out there. Because I said yes to this new experience, I was also able to visit Chicago for the first time, live along the Mississippi River, witness some crazy thunderstorms, and gain exposure to a new area of the US. Therefore, my advice to anyone reading is don’t be scared to try something new and put yourself in places you would have never imagined being in!
Some friends I made this summer:
John Deere’s newest Combine:
Farm fields in the midwest:
CHICAGO!!:
