W.S.G. Isaac Newton

During the first module of this year, I did my internship at VIRO Engineering. VIRO is an engineering firm with multiple branches in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. I was located at the office in Hengelo. Multiple engineering disciplines are present at VIRO as I was working in the Mechanical Engineering department. I worked here as a team member for a specific project. VIRO has acquired a project from a customer in the semiconductor industry for creating tooling used for transporting and building in machine modules in a clean room environment that needs to be competitive. The complete project consisted of multiple tools for several purposes. One of the tools is a crane that can be used to build several modules in the machine. I was assigned to a tool that can transport and install this crane in the tight facility. The project was still very much in its starting phase so most of the activities during the internship were on investigating the given situation and finding possible design solutions for the encountered problems. This gave me a lot of freedom to come up with a concept and to discuss my thoughts with other project team members. During the first two weeks of the internship I received an introduction program to get used to the way of work of VIRO as well as the semiconductor customer that had its own way of work (Software, documentation, terminology). This was very useful to get up to speed and get to know the skills required to work in a VIRO engineering team. After these two weeks, I joined the project as a full team member with my own responsibilities. However, I was not left on my own. The VIRO working environment is best described as very approachable, social, and relaxed. If a (technical or non-technical) question comes up, everyone is prepared to help. If you are tired of looking at your screen you can just take a cup of coffee with your colleagues. Besides the company organizes fun activities now and then to which interns also can join. For anyone wanting to find out what it is like to work in a commercial engineering environment and develop many different skills that are required during design, I would highly recommend coming in contact with VIRO