Advanced Composite Structures Australia welcomes two final year engineering students to the team. Emma Vecoli & Michael Jurdana join the team for twelve weeks working on defence projects, while they complete their university education.
The Defence Industry Internship Program offers students a paid 12-week internship contributing to an SME engineering project. The internship gives students the opportunity to gain real-life experience on real industry projects, while utilising the latest cutting edge technologies. ACS Australia continues to invest in Industry 4.0 technology, with a 3D FDM printer and Multi-Axial CNC machine, which our interns have had the opportunity to utilise in their projects.
Emma Vecoli – Chemical Engineering & Applied Science, RMIT University
Emma is completing a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering & Bachelor of Science (Applied Chemistry) at RMIT University. Emma brings strong foundational knowledge of composite materials having worked as a Laboratory support at Carbon Nexus in Geelong. Emma is currently working on novel thermoplastic adhesive technology used in composite structural bonding.
“I am very excited to have the opportunity to work as part of the ACS Australia team and put my learning into practice whilst working on challenging projects with real-world outcomes.” – Emma
Michael Jurdana – Mechanical Engineering, Swinburne University
Michael is completing a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering at Swinburne University, having finished his final year capstone project focusing on composite carbon fibre materials. He has motorsport experience through the FSAE (Formula Society of Automotive Engineers Australasia) program at university, which has accelerated applying himself on workshop duties. Michael is working on high temperature composites technology for defence application and CNC tooling design utilising additive manufacturing.
“The ACS Australia team are extremely knowledgeable, while going above and beyond in providing me with support throughout my internship. It’s not often you’re given the opportunity to put your theoretical knowledge from prior studies into real-life industry projects. I’ve loved being able to follow projects from the design stage all the way up to manufacture and testing, it’s something that has helped me refine my technical skills and continues to be a highlight of my journey with ACS Australia.” – Michael
We are continually impressed by the quality of graduate engineers entering the workforce, including not only their technical capabilities, but both critical problem solving skills and strong self-motivation they apply to projects. We hope ACS Australia can support both Emma & Michael’s growth, professional development and they enjoy the diverse range of demanding projects we have for them in the defence space of advanced design and manufacturing!
Whether you’re a student or an SME business, you can learn more about the Defence Industry Internship program, and how to apply here: https://diip.com.au/
The program is Australia wide, employing 70 interns each year across 38 SME engineering companies. We were fortunate to participate again this year, having had Matthew Berry the prior year (pictured below). Matthew gained invaluable experience with us and continues his professional career at Ideas at Sea, an Unmanned Aerial System solutions company.
Additionally, Adrian Chiem our Engineer & IT Coordinator is an alumnus of this great program having completed his internship working on defence industry applications of composites-metals bonding, specifically modelling progressive damage on a bonded hybrid composite joint using Cohesive Zone Modelling (CZM) in MSC Marc Mentat. As well as, composite design, software programming and manufacturing processes working on the assembly of a VTOL aircraft. Adrian stayed on with us and has been leading ACS Australia’s area in FEA (Finite Element Analysis) Simulations for composite structures including crash and impact analysis.
👏 We congratulate our 2021/22 interns Dina Wajsbort & Ryan Campbell on completing their Defence Industry Internship Program (DIIP) and thank them for the outstanding work on their respective Defence projects. Dina progressed the development of ultra-high temperature composites, while Ryan developed manufacturing processes for aerospace and energy projects.
Below is a photo with their supervisors Johannes Straub & Bernadette Grant:
