Even more impressive is that Moreno and Anderson began participating in this engineering research before they had even stepped foot in a UWM classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tops in undergraduate research<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Twenty-two intrepid incoming freshmen, including five from the College of Engineering & Applied Science, accepted the challenge, offered by UR@UWM program, part of the Office of Undergraduate Research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The recent high school grads interviewed for the available positions and then worked on a project with a faculty member or research associate in an area related to their intended majors, said Kyla Esguerra, deputy director of the Office of Undergraduate Research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Besides Moreno and Anderson, the three other incoming freshmen researchers were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fighting fear of the unknown<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Though interested in engineering, both Moreno and Anderson worried that they had too vague an idea of what college and a career would be like. So, they decided to leap in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI felt like I was behind in what I should know coming to college,\u201d said Moreno, a recent graduate of Lake Mills High School. \u201cI didn’t know what it would be like. So, when I got this email, I jumped at the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lorenzo Moreno and Peyton Anderson, incoming freshmen in mechanical engineering, built and maintained a dashboard that can give the testbed operators an at-a-glance status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anderson, who recently graduated from MPS\u2019s Ronald Reagan High School, said he was eager to start learning and investigating his career options in engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis opportunity was kind of a blessing.\u201d Anderson said. \u201cI was able to just come along with no experience and they\u2019re teaching me all these things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Real engineering problems<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To begin, Webster had the interns spend time with him, operating and troubleshooting the CSI manufacturing line. Later, when they learned why curating performance data is so important for automation, it made sense to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Anderson, figuring out a way to log the exported data more quickly, was his top achievement because he wasn\u2019t just using the software, he was figuring out how to get the most from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou don\u2019t just want to collect data and create visuals,\u201d he said. \u201cYou want to learn what\u2019s going on from the data. If the only information shows a 40% fail rate \u2013 that\u2019s a fact with no context. It was a good lesson for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Toward self-assurance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Along with the industry connections they made, Webster said, the first-year student interns gained more than hands-on experience. They learned to manage the fear of failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy main goal was to make sure that they are confident in themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s important for when they ultimately go into the working world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that\u2019s what Moreno considered his summer\u2019s highlight. When a group of professionals from Microsoft and the Wisconsin venture capital firm TitleTown Tech visited, the interns presented their project in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDefinitely it was presenting the work that we did to really important people,\u201d Moreno said. \u201cIt was just really cool to feel that pride of accomplishment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At UWM\u2019s Connected Systems Institute a steady stream of vials filled with colored water zip around a \u201ctestbed\u201d production line. It\u2019s a mini-factory floor for researching automated manufacturing technologies and developing a workforce that can use those innovations. But just …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":836,"featured_media":20871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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