May 16, 2022 – August 7, 2022

Engineering Internship Report

Terrasmart
Caleb Corson
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The company I was employed at for my internship co-op is Terrasmart. The company

was established in April of 2009 by founders President of Terrasmart, Ryan Reid and Vice

President of Terrasmart, Brent Franks. Terrasmart has maintained its reputation as a major solar

company for ten years and has continuously stayed a front-runner in the solar industry. The

company partially owes its success as a company to their innovative racking system that utilizes

ground screws to install the system in rock containing soils as well as hilly terrains. Due to the

success of the company, it was recently sold to Gibraltar Industries where the company now

shares and combines ideas, designs, and practices with other solar companies around the country.

The department of Terrasmart I was assigned to be employed for was, the engineering

department. This department includes twelve employees, and three of those employees are

mechanical engineers. The employees who were my supervisors during this internship was the

Director of Engineering, Mike Faraone and the Lead Applications Engineer Kevin Connor. I

worked closely with the supervisors learning the engineering process for designing solar panel

racking systems. I assisted Mike Faraone in the verification of calculations for a project. He

explained how the use of calculations aids in their process for completing a project. Mike

Faraone continued by explaining that calculations display the exact dimensions of every part

needed for the project. This in turn makes the process for completing a project run efficiently and

swift as the employees are not forced to complete the dimensions manually. I learned additional

information about the process for completing projects by working along-side Kevin Connor. I

was tasked with creating rendered images utilizing the software system Autodesk Inventor.

These rendered images were necessary for a package that gets sent to a client. This is the part of

the process that aids in the sales of a job. It demonstrates how every department interacks with
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one another. This just shows how every employee’s continuous effort matters and it is major

contribution to completing a job.

I also worked side by side with the Product Development Engineer Zachary Couto. One

of the first tasks I was assigned to was to assist Zachary Couto with the construction of an IEC

Test Fixture. The fixture was a miniature version of the Tracker racking system that Terrasmart

developed. The reason for the fixtures creation is that it was built to be tested in a lab that

contains weather simulation to test its ability to withstand the elements of different climates. The

fixture incorporated the same parts and electronics that are used on a normal Tracker. The reason

for this is the parts themselves need to be tested. It is also because the test needs to accurately

resemble a tracker in the field that is constantly open to the elements. This accuracy is what aids

in the tests credibility and provides conclusive results that accurately portray the effects of

weather conditions on metal and electronics.

I was additionally tasked with the design and building of various test fixtures for different

parts. I worked along side Zachary Couto and a fellow Engineering Intern, Peter Connolly. Such

tests included a torque test to examine the durability of a metal tube becoming twisted. The test

was necessary because the tube is constantly under this force as it is the part that is twisted to

allow for the mobility of the system so that it can track the sun, which is the innovation that

makes this rack special. I also worked with Chase Anderson who is the Senior Product Design

Engineering. The test we set up for was the uplift test for a prototype of a new tube housing. The

housing was mounted to the surrounding test frame where it was then pulled vertically by chains

connected to a hydraulic ram. The test was important to the development of this prototype

because the calculated amount of force the part could handle had to be proven by a test. The
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strength of the part is important because it has to hold up hundreds of pounds of metal as its

insert is rotated around its axis. If the part is too weak the rack will fall apart and break.

As I observed and set up these tests, they taught me some valuable lessons. One key

lesson I learned was that engineering is not an exact science. I will elaborate on what I mean by

this. It means that something that seems simply straight-forward to build or test on paper, or a

computer may not be so easy when dealing with the physical object in your hands. For example,

there is a testing rack that was constructed to simulate the life cycle of tracker. The tracker was

constructed to test the prototype that was constructed virtually using Autodesk Inventor. The test

showed that there were not enough foundations to properly hold up a load. This was obvious

from a observational view because the torque tubes were severely bowed due to the spacing of

the foundations. This test proved that the initial design failed, and thus it had to get redesigned to

distribute the weight of a load more effectively.

Another lesson I learned as a result of my internship was that when you are building or

designing it is pertinent to take a break to step back and clear your head. The reasoning behind

this lesson is that if you just rush to finish a project you will certainly make mistakes as well as

unintentionally forcing yourself to take a more strenuous route that is not necessary. I learned

this as I built numerous fixtures as I would rush to complete my task. However, when I rushed, I

would end up actually making more work for myself. This is because I would always hammer

parts apart to take apart old fixtures. Sometimes however a hammer would not work to separate

parts. Zackary would observe this and tell me to take a break and then give me advice about a

better way to go about completing my task. His advice was crucial to my learning because it

proved valuable because his methods were not only safer, but they worked. The reason for this is
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due to him tsking a break to stand back to observe and think about the situation. This meant his

head was always clear allowing him to make wise decisions.

An area I felt unprepared for was the manipulation of parts in Inventor. I was tasked with

updating part drawings as well as the parts properties. These tasks seem simple, however, there

were many steps I had to take to correctly edit parts. The reason I felt unprepared for this was

because I had been trained in Inventor before, but I did not have experience using the different

settings that are used in an actual job environment. Therefore, I would struggle because I would

try to complete my work on my own before asking for help. However, asking for another’s

assistance to teach you is important because you learn the correct way to complete a task so you

can use it in future.

I greatly appreciated the experience of this internship because I learned valuable

information that will assist in my engineering future. I also enjoyed when we would have team

bonding. My favorite activity one was playing ping pong. We would play after work and

challenge one another whenever possible because everyone wanted to move up the ranks in their

leagues. I had no experience playing ping pong so some of my coworkers trained me and

because of this training I moved up the ranks to the higher league. Another activity I enjoyed was

going to the bowling alley after work to play a little pool. However, they had more experience

playing, and I normally would lose. Other times on the other hand I won but it was because my

opponent would hit the eight-ball in to give me the win. We played almost every week, and

during this time is how I would get to know my coworkers. We also would have parties on the

weekends for employees who were leaving the company or moving away. One party I attended

was open to the families of every coworker as well. These experiences allowed me to know my

coworkers, before I started working with them at Terrasmart. I used this lucky opportunity to get
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feedback and tips about what I might need to know for my position as well as a mechanical

engineer in general. An additional benefit of working at Terrasmart was those expenses such as

the cost-of-living arrangements was zero. This is because Terrasmart is in Fort Myers, Florida

which is where my family lives. I lived with my parents for the summer and at the same time my

father, Terrence Corson, and I carpooled to work because he is the CAD Engineer for

Terrasmart.