Road side clean up

Two weeks ago on Tuesday, September 28th, 16 of us drove up to Gheen, MN to pick up the trash on our section of Adopt a Highway. All that participated, watched a mandatory safety video before we drove up there. The clean up went down without a hitch and was completed very quickly due to good planning and execution. It was a profitable trip for me since I found a dollar on the side of the highway. Why someone threw a dollar out the window of their vehicle is beyond me but I am not complaining. It was nice to get a chance to do something for the the community because they have done so much for our program. We plan to continue our volunteering and community service efforts through adopt a highway and other venues.


Proofed by: Matt Hudson Tyler Bartek

Is the glass half full, or half empty?

Well it's midterm time which means we are halfway through another semmester here at IRE. This can be seen as both a positive and a negative. On the bright side, we are halfway through another semester! That means eight weeks closer to graduating....(knock on wood). On the slighty not so bright side, we as a group only have eight weeks left to both learn a majority of our competencies and complete our projects. That is a scary thought. I personally am sitting around a learning completion percentage of around 30. That means I need to get moving in the near future. As the weather gets colder and colder, I realize I should take the helpful tip and stay inside to study more. I would just love to keep adding to this blog, but I should really get to studying heat transfer.

Proofed by: Carson Krueger

IRE Update 10-10-10

First off, sorry to all of our blog followers for the recent inactivity the past week. IRE students have been extremely busy and plan to be updating the blog daily again starting this week. Over the past week and a half students have had a tour at Caterpillar Paving Products Co. factory, enjoyed a Minnesota Twins game against the Blue Jays, completed a series of labs in Mankato, and been busy with project work.
The Caterpillar tour was given to us by Jeff Woelz. We toured their factory which produces over 55 models of road construction equipment. There were many engineering applications we saw at the tour. For example, Cat employees have Six Sigma Training and the plant has Lean manufacturing processes. What Lean manufacturing at Cat means: 1. At every station make an improvement 2. Move it in the straightest path possible. We were also told the fundamental engineering skills the company sees in good engineers. They included good communication skills, the ability to use computational data resources, projects and experience.
The Twins game was kicked off by a group meal at the Hard Rock Cafe in Minneapolis, which was within walking distance to Target Field. The Twins lost that night, but it was still a nice night to watch outdoor baseball. The highlight for the home team was a homer hit to center by Delmon Young.
The past week students participated in a labs with Dr. Tebbe in Mankato. The labs consisted of a pressure lab, heat transfer lab, pump lab, flowrate lab, and thermocouple lab. They dealt with the use of labview, a computer program used to collect data. Students are continuing to work on projects, with the GE team being down in Mankato at General Electric's plant.

proofed by Erin Lamke

A Change

Since the start of IRE, there has always been some direction that has been given to us, the students. There has always been some outside established goals to pursue in almost every aspect of our program. But in the past couple weeks this has started to change. Faculty/mentors no longer make the schedules for the weekly events. The student body has began taking responsibility for our work area, scheduling tours and community service projects, establishing public relations with the community, communicating with student ambassadors of affiliated schools, and leading ourselves with personal learning goals. I think that this has changed the mentality of IRE as a whole. Now we can only let ourselves down. It is a great way for us to improve ourselves professionally, from both an individual and engineering standpoint. I believe this is a step in the right direction for the program, as well as the students. Changes are continually being made to develop and improve Iron Range Engineering.

Proofed by Austin

Lunch Speaker

This weeks lunch speaker was Jim Mayerlle. Jim told us of his work experience at IBM and shared valuable lessons he learned throughout his career. He had a few main points he stressed. They are as follows:

1. Develop your communication skills

2. Expect and be ready for change

3. Get yourself a mentor

4. Distinguish yourself within a team

These are things that we as students and future engineers can use as tools to become better professional people.

Proofed by Deric

GE Challenge

All of us in the GE group are gearing up to attend our first "Lean Manufacturing" session next week at Midwest Electrical in Mankato.
We will be working with existing people from the company along with Mr. Moe Benda of Cirrus Aviation in an attempt to permanently do away with an overhead crane system currently used for mounting wire spools on the feeding lines. Apart from this we are also going to be looking into anything else that can speed up production in order to save the company money in the long run. This should be quite an extensive learning experience for all so if anyone has questions about "Lean", feel free to talk to any of us in the GE group.

Autodesk Inventor

Today at IRE we spent the day in a workshop with a representative from Autodesk. He showed us some basics with using the software as well as some more advaced features and demonstrations. Most of us at IRE have had more recent experience with ProE which was discussed extensively today. As it would seem, Autodesk is a far easier program to work with. Certain features such as ballons, helical sweeps, and bolts are a breeze with Autodesk and take a fraction of the time that the same features take to create and use in ProE. Our presenter, Thom Tremblay was a very competent and helpful guide. He had all the answers to our questions and was good at keeping our interest.

Proofed by Bill Bacon