As my summer is coming to an end, so are my blogs. Welcome to my fifth and final blog, I hope you have enjoyed reading them so far!
So far throughout my blogging journey, I have shared some personal details about myself, and some different projects I have been working on. For my last blog, I feel like it would be right to cover both of those topics in some sort of conclusion.
Overall, I feel like I had a pretty good summer. Between going to work, going to the gym, golfing, and spending time with my friends I feel like it was productive. Doing my first engineering summer job at ANC this year was a big step towards starting my engineering career. I have gained a lot of important experience with how things work in a day to day engineering job. This has enlightened me into what my future could look like with my mechanical engineering degree, and it further reinforces my decision to become an engineer. One of my favorite parts about this job was the application of what I have learned in school so far to this job. I have used my knowledge of some engineering theorems I’ve learned to complete calculations for different problems. I have also applied my experience with cad software to create different parts and assemblies that are slowly getting implemented into the mill. By next summer I should see all my different parts installed which is exciting! Outside of the engineering side of work, I have learned quite a bit about the general pulp and paper making process ANC has. I find all the different processes they put the woodchips and the pulp through to make specific grades of paper very interesting. They inject many different chemicals into the pulp to change its properties such as its brightness and density. Overall, the whole process from tree to paper off the end of the machine is very in depth and fascinating!
With only two weeks left of work here at ANC, I’ve started to prepare for moving into my house that I am renting for the school year. Three of my friends and I are renting a place for the first time ever which will be a big change from staying in residence for the first two years of our degrees. This weekend I plan to go up to Edmonton to play in a mini dodgeball tournament that is going on. If you didn’t already know, dodgeball is one of the most popular recreational sports at the University of Alberta. In the residence, they hold one of, if not the biggest dodgeball league in North America. Essentially, dodgeball is a big deal to a large majority of University of Alberta students. While I am up visiting for the weekend, I am moving a bunch of my stuff into my new house as well. It’s a small step into my new reality that is starting soon. I am also going to play some golf in Edmonton this weekend. I plan to go to Victoria on Saturday and Cattail Crossing on Sunday (if you care about where I am golfing). These will be some good chances to round out my golf year with some new courses before the inevitable snowfall ruins all my fun (big sad face).
Recently at work I haven’t been up to too many cool projects, it’s been more just smaller jobs that are related to our bleach plant project. The main thing I have been up to is piping inventory checks to ensure we have enough pipe and fittings to complete the project. One cool part I got to design was a mounting bracket for our new hydrogen peroxide unloading arm. I believe we are getting it manufactured and installed within the next couple of weeks would be cool to hopefully see it installed while I am still here.
Lastly, I feel like I should share my top three highlights of my summer with you guys.
The first highlight of my summer would be my second time going to Trestle Creek Golf Course. I shot a new personal best on the course despite it being quite a bit more challenging than Whitecourt’s course. My friends and I all had a great golfing experience that day and it was well worth our money.
My second highlight of the summer would be getting to design the winching system that I went into detail about during my second blog. The whole project allowed me to use what I have learned in school so far and apply it to something very meaningful. The system I made will be used at ANC for years to come and I am able to confidently say that I am the person who designed it.
And my third highlight would be going to Big Valley Jamboree for the second time. I went into detail about that in my last blog, but I had such a great time there. It was an awesome experience I got to share with some friends I hadn’t seen in a while.
Overall, I had a great summer and a great time making these blogs throughout. This job at ANC has really taught me a lot about this side of the forestry industry and made me heavily consider something like it for my future employment! I would like to also thank FPAC who have created this program to give me a great opportunity to share my summer experiences with everyone. I really enjoyed writing these blogs each week. It is always a nice change from regular work and a cool way to give more exposure to different types of forestry jobs. I am very excited to get back to school in a couple of weeks now and potentially return to ANC next summer! (and maybe become a Green Dream Intern again!)
Thank you for reading!
Aaron
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