Monday 7 August 2017

Iona Anderson - Summer STEM Work Placement - Weekly Reports

The STEM placement students are sending us weekly blogs all about their experience in the world of work! 


Work experience is great and it provides students with many benefits whilst gaining skills and helping choose the right future career path for pupils. Having work experience on a Curriculum Vitae will make a person stand out to employers as they will notice they have motivation and a real passion for work. It will also help to boost a students confidence in themselves!


See how Iona is getting on with her STEM placement! 


Week One 

"The first part of the week was spent mainly getting to grips with the project by doing some preliminary research into transistors and amplifiers. Initially I used lecture notes for this and then went on to supplement what I had learnt with information from the internet. I also had the chance to experience some lab work this week and modelled a simple amplifier circuit on a breadboard in order to test its output voltage and current. 

The second half of the week I spent simulating various circuits on Multisim in order to find out various things, for example what the cut-off frequency for the circuit I built was."


Week Two

"This week was spent mainly preparing to make my final circuit. I did some further testing on the breadboard circuit and also connected it to a guitar and speaker to see if the circuit would still run as normal and if it would show what we wanted it to. After making some adjustments and choosing the final values for components I began to design the circuit board and box, for the circuit to go in, on paper. 

I finished the week by drawing up a cutting plan for the box on Corel draw and developed my circuit design so that it would reduce the noise within the circuit."

Week Three

"This week was mainly spent making the final amplifier and box. I soldered the final circuit to some Vero board and then tested the circuit to see if everything was working as it should. Some faults were found and I had to do some debugging and corrections. After I knew the circuit was operating correctly; I concentrated on making the box, initially a prototype was made and after correcting some minor issues with the orientation of some faces, the final box was cut using the laser cutter. On Thursday, I had the chance to present my work." 
- Iona Anderson 

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