The University of Rhode Island (URI) offers Capstone Experiences for undergraduate seniors. Capstone Experiences can include courses, internships, portfolios, senior theses, and research/design projects. These programs allow students to “tackle a real engineering challenge at a local engineering company” to provide a hands-on experience.
Groov-Pin often works with local high schools and colleges in Rhode Island and Georgia to get young people interested in manufacturing careers. Our junior engineer, Jon, recently presented Groov-Pin’s modeling and analysis project at URI and three students chose to work with our company.
Laeng Khoun, Tyler Kelly, and Josh Blacker are all majoring in mechanical engineering at URI and are looking forward to meeting project goals and working with members of the Groov-Pin team.
Laeng enjoyed touring the production floor and meeting Jon and our CEO, Scot A. Jones. He chose to work with Groov-Pin because of his previous experience with finite element analysis and interest in furthering his knowledge. His project goals include, “producing models and simulations that provide useful information on different aspects of threaded insert performance that haven’t been produced before.”
Tyler is working to gain a better understanding of our Threaded Inserts and the variables that make them work in critical applications for various industries. “I hope that my team and I can develop a simulation of this phenomena through the use of finite element analysis software and all of the methods of designs that we have learned throughout our career at URI,” he said. Tyler has enjoyed working with our knowledgeable staff and appreciates the passion that Groov-Pin employees have for their work.
Josh was interested in Groov-Pin’s project because of the various environments our Threaded Inserts are used in. He hopes to have a career where he can use creativity and knowledge to create something useful for people. “I hope to use the engineering skills I have learned over the past 3 years at URI to finish the project goal and hope our capstone project will be an asset to Groov-Pin,” he said.
We are very excited to be working with these promising students and look forward to the completion of this project. Jon will return to URI on Thursday, October 27, 2017 for the Capstone Project critical design review.