Hello, I am Adam!

Happy New Year!
This week was our third week of 3D printing. Most of the week was spent finishing the 3D printing development folder. I had my review this week and I was very happy with how everything went. I talked about my own development during the module so far, like focusing on working with more structure in general. My tutor told me that the system myself and another classmate built is going to be tried in future 3D printing groups, which I was proud of.

I have ordered some Ethyl Acetate for vapour smoothing PLA, and some Acetone to make an ABS paste at home and to try vapour smoothing ABS too. I conducted research online whilst planning the creation of the screwdriver-USB stick, and discovered that you can use Ethyl Acetate vapours to smooth PLA. Of course, I had to try it out. 

The ABS paste works by feeding ABS plastic into Acetone, where the ratio of Acetone to ABS determines the thickness of the paste. My idea is to use some silicone molds I have to cold-cast some pots. When plastic casting previously, I have done it using high heat and it produced a lot of fumes which are dangerous. Whilst I was wearing an N-95 respirator the whole time, it would be best to avoid creating the toxic fumes. My idea is that with cold casting, the fumes can be limited to just acetone fumes, and there will be no heat involved which will let me undertake a more safe procedure when casting and melting the plastic. I had previously repurposed an old metal can and melted the plastic over an open flame, which not only took a long time, but meant I had to be there to monitor the temperature constantly. Melting ABS in Acetone does not require this and is much more straightforward overall. I wanted to turn the scrap ABS from this project, produced by the whole class, to cast the pots. I am passionate about recycling as a whole, and I would like to get into the Precious Plastics Project so this might be a good thing to show them.

Below is an AI-summarised version of my personal learner journal, which I post to a University resource each week. 

This week, I wrapped up 3D printing a USB housing, which involved a lot of prototyping and tweaking. The idea was to create a precision-bit screwdriver that holds a USB stick in the middle of it, through the back. I used my home 3D printer to refine fitments and ergonomics, resulting in numerous adjustments, particularly to the screwdriver's profile and O-ring grooves. While I’m happy with the final product, I acknowledge room for improvement, especially since ergonomic design is new to me. Learning from YouTube videos felt nostalgic, like being back in college. I dedicated most of my free time to Inventor and 3D printing, even helping classmates by printing test pieces to demonstrate issues like inadequate wall thickness. These examples helped them refine their tolerances and designs.

With my tutor absent, a classmate and I stepped up to manage class printing, including organising schedules and nesting prints to maximise efficiency and minimise costs. Balancing test and final pieces was challenging, and printer issues added complexity. When one printer ran out of filament, we used an online guide and assistance from a different tutor to learn the process. Another printer had a nozzle clog overnight, causing a one-day delay, but we resolved it and continued smoothly.

Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing

I explored a fascinating video on Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing. The clever implementation and focus on weight as a limiting factor were eye-opening. Intrigued, I posed several questions to my materials lecturer about metal particle fusion, oxidation, stresses, microstructure, and factors like particle velocity and bed temperature on material properties and adhesion. While this wasn’t her area of expertise, she appreciated the thoughtful questions and discussed the technology briefly. It was disappointing to learn that additive manufacturing isn’t part of our course, but she expressed openness to arranging guest lectures or other opportunities in the future, which I greatly appreciated.

The rainwater collection build finished this weekend. I am very happy to be involved in an external project, and although I was only involved in the building, I gained lots of skills along the way and met lots of great people. It may not look like much, but lots of preparation from society members over the years went into this project and being there to build it was very rewarding. I hope the people using the allotment find it useful! I would love to be involved in another project in the future, still sticking with sustainable engineering. I am currently in talks with people in the Precious Plastics Project. They are looking for a CAD designer for their injection moulds which are to be CNC machined. The thing that made the rainwater collection project more accessible to me was that it was only on every Saturday when I am free. The Precious Plastics team has meetings every Tuesday but are flexible on the time. I am very interested in this project since I knew about it during college, but I am worried I may not be able to commit the time to the project. I may ask to be a volunteer or something similar.

This week I made two scripts on Google Sheets, written in JavaScript.

The idea was to pull real-time data from a cryptocurrency site called CoinMarketCap, and to integrate portfolio tracking from Kraken, using APIs from both sites. I have no experience coding in JavaScript apart from tweaking values in a Minecraft mod, so ChatGPT and forums proved to be vital for this project, but I have experience with writing code in Python, albeit from a few years ago.

Overall, I am very happy with the progress for this project so far, although I might have lost hair this week over it.

A lot of time was spent troubleshooting bugs, since ChatGPT was starting to slow down a lot and make mistakes like removing functionality from the code. Instead, I asked it to tell me what code to alter and what to, and I went from there.

The CoinMarketCap script is in a great place currently. The script is handling a lot of dynamic inputs, such as grabbing coin lists directly from specific ranges and making sure blank entries don’t cause any issues. It took a lot of trial and error to get it right, especially with formatting. The market caps and volumes are now displayed in millions with two decimal places, and more importantly, they don’t break filters in the sheet anymore. It’s been a tricky balance to keep the data clean whilst keeping it functional. Timestamping was also added, so now the sheets show exactly when they were last updated, with separate cells for clarity. It’s a small thing, but it feels professional and useful.

Kraken’s portfolio tracking has been another focus. I’ve set up a script that pulls my balances, calculates USD values, and creates a pie chart showing how my portfolio is distributed. Initially, the chart wasn’t displaying certain coins, which took a bit of debugging to fix. Adjusting the data ranges and handling edge cases like empty rows solved it. Seeing the chart update dynamically feels satisfying, even though I still have more to do. For example, average purchase prices aren’t being calculated correctly yet—it might be that the script is trying to pull too much historical data, so I’ll need to limit the range to six months or something similar. One of my friends from high school is great at coding and has a lot of experience. I showed him the code and we will work together on making this last feature a reality.

Today marked the first day that I joined in on the Rainwater Collection Project, with the Engineering Without Borders society at the Uni. It was a great time, and we are expecting to finish the project before Christmas, meeting up every Saturday until then. Last week, they laid concrete for the wood pillars, and this week was mostly cutting wood, making sure that the frame is square. It was a lot of hard work, since the only electric tool we had is a drill so all of the cutting was done with a saw and a chisel was used to create an angle for the beam. It was my first time using a chisel - after going home and looking it up I now know not to try and take chunks out of the wood and to do it in layers instead. It is a chisel after all - not a mini axe.

This week went well for my CAD. I am happy that I am moving onto more complicated models. I am currently working on the drawing for an Oscillating Engine, which has 17 parts. I have completed the models and the assembly with minimal fuss.

Assessment 2 marks the end of the CAD section of block release, where we will be moving onto 3D printing next. The modelling for this assessment was fun, since we were given free rein over our wheel design. I struggled with embossing text on a concave surface. I have done it on a flat and convex surface before with no issues but I am determined to figure out what my problem is. I will talk to my CAD teacher when everything is handed in, and I had a play around yesterday at home to try to figure it out. 

Overall, I am happy with how the assessment went. My style for my presentations carried through to this assessment, and I found the workflow to be efficient, since I have done quite a few presentations before by now. One skill that helped me progress was the ability to adapt when a plan doesn’t go well, although being able to sketch and quickly iterate allowed me to come up with the plan for my model efficiently.

The Ealy Careers Launch Event was for all of the newer employees into the business, from all the different sectors. It was held for the whole working day. Myself and Isaac got the train at 6, and I arrived back at home at 8:30. The event was great, and I met lots of people who I am now connected with within the company. I met a group of other apprentices in other parts of the business, with the most unexpected being in Architecture. Overall, I loved how much networking was pushed, and I spoke to someone about getting Chartered as an apprentice. My confidence and overall satisfaction grew a lot, and something very nice was how equally grateful everyone was for getting the job, since we all jumped over our own hurdles to get here. I added lots of people on LinkedIn and have started to talking to a few more regularly. A big plus in my books. Plus, London was cool!

This course was on LinkedIn Learning and is the first course I am doing on this platform.

Each topic ended with a short quiz of 4 questions which was a great summary and I really liked the interface. The topics I covered were:

1. Managing Ranges, Vectors and Matrices

2. Creating MATLAB Scripts

3. Creating Conditional Logic and Loops

4. Managing Strings

5. Plotting Data and Functions

The first two topics were covered already during the Maths lecture last week with Hudair, so this was a nice reminder. I did struggle with the Creating Conditional Logic and Loops section, as it was the most content heavy section. It does help that I did lots of Python in high school, and I felt like it was quite similar, but I am not familiar with functions and the syntax. I may need to rewatch this part of the course, but I am going to wait to cover it with Hudair.

Overall, I am beginning to see the utility of MATLAB. However, I have not got past the thought process of "Can't we just do this in Python?" I am sure this will change as it gets more complicated though!

Our assessment this week involved making parts, assemblies, drawings and a presentation based on a written briefing we had. The assessment went smoothly overall, and I finished within the day.

Originally, I could not conceptualise the parts for the briefing, but I used pencil and paper to make a quick sketch of the part. This helped a lot before starting to model the part, since I understood what it was meant to look like going into it. This made following the instructions more intuitive. I also did the parts, assemblies, and drawings before the presentation as it would let me plan ahead, making the decision on how to show features in the presentation very quick.

Problems I had along the way were dealt with through reading my notes and following my own instructions. An example is with the revolve, where I feel that I would have forgotten to make the axis a centre line if I had not followed my notes.

I just turned 19, moved out of home from Manchester to live by myself, started a full-time job and in studying in University all for the first time; it was quite the leap. But, I am committed to keep organised, determined and resilient! I am loving it here, and onboarding has been very smooth.

I achieved A A C in Maths, Economics and Physics, respectively, at Cheadle Hulme Sixth Form in Manchester. I was hugely disappointed with my physics grade since it was my favourite subject, but lots of reflection later revealed that I needed to work on solving problems more general and outside the scope of the subject, applying those skills to the exam.

On the bright side, I was very pleased with my maths and economics, where I had improved my maths grade from C/B to an A!
Also, this did not impact my position to AtkinsRéalis as a degree apprentice, studying at the AMRC and University of Sheffield.