Sawyer Bovingdon: Waterloo Mechatronics Engineering Co-Op at Kraken Sense

Sawyer, a Mechanical Engineering student at Waterloo, shares his experience working for Kraken Sense as a Mechatronics Intern.

Sawyer completed his co-op term at Kraken Sense as a Mechatronics Intern, prototyping an automated manufacturing system for the microfluidic chip of the KRAKEN, a qPCR-based pathogen detection device.

What was your main project?

“Standardization and automation of the microfluidic chip manufacturing process. I worked closely with the other engineers to optimize the procedures we had in place for making all the chips, trying to make the process faster and more reliable for testing and product rollout.”

What did your typical day look like?

“First, I would start off by talking to my supervisors to see what problems and hangups my designs had. With that, I would try to discover the rate-determining steps for the procedure in making these chips to see what I could fix and make faster.”

“My day also involved a lot of research, as this is new innovative technology. I would use these findings to create my designs, then test them, document my results, and eventually move forward with standardization if it was successful.”

What was the most rewarding part of your experience?

“My work was a lot about rapid prototyping, seeing a problem, ideating solutions, and implementing them as fast as possible. It wasn’t background or R&D work – it was creating a tangible product that would actually be taken into the finalized product, which was really rewarding to see.”

What was the most challenging part of your experience? How did you overcome it?

“The most challenging part was the fast-paced environment. It was easy to get overwhelmed with new concepts and problems that every new design brought on. As we were creating such a novel product, there were not very many defined constraints around the problems we were trying to solve.”

“Switching my mindset to thinking about the questions I should be asking, rather than going down rabbit holes over every little hangup really helped me adapt to the speed of this environment and come up with creative solutions to our problems.”

What did you enjoy about the company culture?

“There was a very family-like atmosphere. There were strict deadlines and everything but everyone was willing to help, which hasn’t always been the case with previous jobs. Everyone, even with their own overwhelming assignments, will still take a minute to try to help you.”

“Everyone makes mistakes, but it was more about fostering a constructive environment where we can build off our failures. Within the innovation industry, there’s bound to be hangups, but I liked how everyone always focused on next steps instead of fixating on what went wrong.”