Culver students sharpen engineering skills as Notre Dame summer interns

 

Two Culver Academies students spent this summer doing real-world engineering work as paid interns at the University of Notre Dame, learning to use sophisticated 3D printers, laser printers and other equipment to design and produce products for entrepreneurs.

Maggie Kelley ’25 (Culver, Indiana) and Cole Heiman ’25 (Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois) spent eight weeks working eight hours a day, five days a week at Notre Dame’s IDEA Center Innovation Lab, which assists entrepreneurs at the university and the surrounding communities bring their ideas and innovations to market.

The internships were offered to Culver students through The Ron Rubin School for the Entrepreneur, which challenges students to develop a deeper understanding of entrepreneurism through rigorous curricula and experiential learning.

As interns, Kelley and Heiman helped turn the ideas of entrepreneurs into products. 

“It was really nice to be in that environment of working with clients and getting to actually make their ideas actually come to reality,” Heiman said.

Kelley said the internship was even better than she hoped.

“It was so much fun. My co-workers were passionate and creative,” she said.

They spent the first two weeks learning to use and becoming certified on SolidWorks, the industry standard computer-assisted design program.

Matt Leevy, Ph.D., director of the IDEA Center and an associate professor at Notre Dame, praised their work.

“Their talents were on full display this summer. They rapidly became certified in SolidWorks. From there, they each took on several real-world projects from our clients as well as helping with our in-house projects in the Innovation Lab,” Levy said. “We were very happy with their efforts. We’re thrilled to have had them at the Innovation Lab at Notre Dame. I look forward to hearing great things about them in the future.”

 

 

Heiman said one of the more memorable projects he worked on was designing hinges that held together modular forts for children.

Kelley said one of her favorite projects was creating covers to go on a lock for an escape room so the creator could change the password to match with the theme.

Both students had to repeatedly go back to the drawing board to get their designs just right.

When announcing the internship, J.D. Uebler, director of The Ron Rubin School for the Entrepreneur, said he was looking for students who were curious, willing to learn and willing to fail.

Kelley said she applied for the internship because she wanted to gain a better understanding of the engineering design process. She said it was good to see how engineering works outside of a classroom environment.

Heiman said he knew he wanted to apply once he heard about the internship.

“Engineering is my life. I love building things. I want to go to college for mechanical engineering,” he said.

He also has an interest in aerospace engineering.

“I’ll have to see where it takes me. There are a lot of options out there,” Heiman said. “That’s why I did this. I’m trying to open as many doors as possible. Getting these kinds of skills will help me to do that.”

Kelley said she is interested in a career in agricultural engineering or biomedical engineering. She said even though the focus of the internship was on industrial engineering, it was still a valuable experience.

“It was an important opportunity to work with talented people and get a better idea of the authentic engineering process,” she said.

When Heiman and Kelley had some down time they made laser-engraved wood cuts of various Culver buildings that will be available for bidding at Culver’s Live the Legacy auction on Sept 27.

 

 

 

They plan to share what they learned with other students taking Culver’s  Strategic Business Management class to produce merchandise to be sold at the student-run Eagle Outfitters campus store.

“It’s an example of taking small action this year to dabble in the production of custom merchandise, using our own 3D and laser printing equipment,” Uebler said.

He also hopes Heiman and Kelley will teach other Culver’s entrepreneurial study students how to use computer-assisted drawing programs and to use 3D printers and laser printers.

“Right now entrepreneurial studies students create low-density prototypes with cardboard, which is great. It’s helpful. But I want to up that skill level so they can design protypes using the 3D printer to really bring their products and innovation ideas to a real space. Cole and Maggie can help us do that,” Uebler said.

Uebler said he hopes by the end of the year the student-run Eagle Outfitters will be selling items students made with a 3D printer or laser cutter.

Kelley and Heiman said they would recommend the internship to any Culver students interested in engineering.

Both students said one of the best parts of interning at the IDEA Center they never knew what they’d be working on next.

“Every single day I only knew a little bit about what I would be doing,” Kelley said. “It was always something new every day. It was awesome to be in a position to tackle authentic problems with real clients.”

Leevy said he hopes to have interns from Culver at Notre Dame every summer after seeing how Kelley and Heiman performed.

“What I would say most about the Culver students is that when you combine the maturity with the talent, all of a sudden they are able to work with clients without supervision. That made them significant contributors right away. They were treated like any other staff. I didn’t have to micromanage what they were doing. The fact that they were in high school was almost beside the point because of that maturity level and that talent level.”