3 Week LINK Internship at Berg Performance (What is it?)
LINK is an opportunity provided to Juniors at Animas High School to intern anywhere in the world with a mentor of choice. You start by contacting a person you believe would be a good mentor for you at the location you wish to intern, I chose to intern at Berg Performance in Denver, Colorado. My mentor being Aaron Marshal, the owner and operator of the company taught me invaluable information about Audi's, Porsche's, and Volkswagen's (the cars they specialize in). I worked on cars me and my friends would only see on posters and on social media, hoping we would someday see them, luckily I saw these rare gems every day. Berg has a reputation of never skipping steps and caring for cars like they are more than their own, their motto being
"Everything is important".
https://www.bergperformance.com/
"Everything is important".
https://www.bergperformance.com/
What I Am Anticipating:
I am hoping that I learn some information on the mechanics of cars and how they are properly repaired and maintained. I have since 6th grade been a diehard Audi enthusiast and have had experience with my family and friends in the same circle. I want to be challenged and to learn (hopefully not from mistake) about how Audi's are unique from any other car, I wish to walk away with more knowledge than I had before and to hopefully decide whether this field is right for me.
I started my LINK process by first contacting a Audi tuning company in Las Vegas under the name 'Iroz Motorsports' working most specifically on RS3's and TTRS's, Audi's flagship 'fast' cars where Iroz makes them much, much faster. Unfortunately, I never received a reply via email or phone call. However, my Dad has some friends in Denver that worked on his two Audi's and had a very good connection to them, their company name was Berg Performance. My Dad first contacted them without asking me and had essentially set it up before I even talked to Aaron. I sent my resume and cover letter to Aaron and he responded the same day confirming my internship. I felt this opportunity was best for me because of my love for Audi's and how they are engineered to perfection and I hope to bring a helping hand to Berg with my enthusiasm for completing things to perfection as I never have a thought of doing work halfway with things I love. I also hope to leave a great impression on the guys at Berg showing them that not all High Schoolers are sit around type of people expecting things to be done for them, I hope to get my hands dirty and leave a great impression on other possible interns at their company.
I am hoping that I learn some information on the mechanics of cars and how they are properly repaired and maintained. I have since 6th grade been a diehard Audi enthusiast and have had experience with my family and friends in the same circle. I want to be challenged and to learn (hopefully not from mistake) about how Audi's are unique from any other car, I wish to walk away with more knowledge than I had before and to hopefully decide whether this field is right for me.
I started my LINK process by first contacting a Audi tuning company in Las Vegas under the name 'Iroz Motorsports' working most specifically on RS3's and TTRS's, Audi's flagship 'fast' cars where Iroz makes them much, much faster. Unfortunately, I never received a reply via email or phone call. However, my Dad has some friends in Denver that worked on his two Audi's and had a very good connection to them, their company name was Berg Performance. My Dad first contacted them without asking me and had essentially set it up before I even talked to Aaron. I sent my resume and cover letter to Aaron and he responded the same day confirming my internship. I felt this opportunity was best for me because of my love for Audi's and how they are engineered to perfection and I hope to bring a helping hand to Berg with my enthusiasm for completing things to perfection as I never have a thought of doing work halfway with things I love. I also hope to leave a great impression on the guys at Berg showing them that not all High Schoolers are sit around type of people expecting things to be done for them, I hope to get my hands dirty and leave a great impression on other possible interns at their company.
LINK Week 1 Portfolio
Day 1.) I started off my internship by walking into the wrong office suite and got to meet some great beer brewers (I didn't try it, of course). Walking into Berg the first thing I noticed was how pristine and clean the whole facility was, knowing mechanics in the past I knew that this wouldn't be any normal type of mechanics shop. I was met by Jeff, and was introduced to Aaron the owner, Doc, Jesus and Ketle. I started by helping clean their cars as it was a slow Monday and neither me or any of the guys could find work. It was a great first experience walking in and I hope to learn a lot more from these great mentors.
Day 2.) We started the day by being assigned a project. The project being a stairway that is collapsible against the wall with a platform at the top. He wants us to make it solely out of steel to keep the aesthetic of the industrial look of the shop. The design me and Joe thought of are below, the lines being metal meshing:
Day 2.) We started the day by being assigned a project. The project being a stairway that is collapsible against the wall with a platform at the top. He wants us to make it solely out of steel to keep the aesthetic of the industrial look of the shop. The design me and Joe thought of are below, the lines being metal meshing:
Day 3.) Today we helped Aaron build an old motor that had its cylinders worn down and had to be completely rebuilt, we were able to see most of the process of the motor being built and me and Joe were both very intrigued and were learning deeply about its mechanics. We were able to get it set up for the next day to be installed completely.
Day 4.) Wow, we installed the motor and has all the electrical, coolant, and oil installed and filled. It started first time which I was completely astonished by considering the complexity of the old engine that had to be rebuilt. We also picked up all the steel required to build the stairs along with the platform. Aaron seemed very pleased and impressed by our process that went into designing and measuring the lengths necessary to build this project.
Day 5.) I learned to weld today and found out how really difficult it is. I got the general concept down but need to work on the process of making it structurally sound and professional looking. I learned so much from this first week and hope that when they trust me more to work on cars that I will become better in this field and decide if this is truly something I want to pursue. As of now, I am very interested and excited.
Day 4.) Wow, we installed the motor and has all the electrical, coolant, and oil installed and filled. It started first time which I was completely astonished by considering the complexity of the old engine that had to be rebuilt. We also picked up all the steel required to build the stairs along with the platform. Aaron seemed very pleased and impressed by our process that went into designing and measuring the lengths necessary to build this project.
Day 5.) I learned to weld today and found out how really difficult it is. I got the general concept down but need to work on the process of making it structurally sound and professional looking. I learned so much from this first week and hope that when they trust me more to work on cars that I will become better in this field and decide if this is truly something I want to pursue. As of now, I am very interested and excited.
LINK Week 2 Portfolio
Day 6.) We got the rest of the materials we were missing to start welding. We did research on how to properly prep metal to be welded and the most proper way to weld securely and safely.
Day 7.) We did all the welding for making the frame, we added the FEM (grate) to the finished platform frame. We took two rectangle tube and used angle iron between them to make a stair/ladder. We drilled holes into the rectangle tube to add a cylinder hinge, putting it inside and welding it inside.
Day 8.) We finished all welding for the platform and stairs, and welded the hinge to the stairs by adding square tube at an angle from the platform and also welding the other side of the hinge into a drilled hole in the tube. We started a replacement of a steering column in the shops 1984 Dodge W150, by taking the column out we understood the tools we need for going to a pull it yourself junkyard.
Day 9.) Going to 5 different junkyards and calling many more, we found that this truck is actually quite scarce in the Denver area, and finding only one similar truck had already had its steering column taken. This is all we did this day.
Day 10.) I ordered a steering column for the same truck from South East Colorado, it should arrive about Wednesday and should be fully installed the next day. We completed the platform fully and will mount it Tuesday when Aaron's main carpenter comes by to help us mount the platform because of the difficulty we had with figuring out how to mount to metal struts.
My Reflection on this Experience
I cant express the things that I have learned while at this internship, everything from welding to proper mechanical design, to learning how to rebuild an engine to mounting it back inside the car and having it run the first time. My mentor and co-workers were unbelievably patient and helpful the entire time and tried their best to keep me occupied, trying their best to give me as much knowledge as I could take in. Doc, Ketle, El Jeffe, and Aaron were the most amazing mentors and co-workers I could have possibly asked for. The only two things I would have changed about this internship is going alone and having more time to work on cars. I would have rather gone alone because I think that in general when I was there most of the work only required a single person and there wasn't nearly enough stuff to do and there was far too much spare time on both of our hands.
I also had trouble getting along with my internship partner because we both had very different mindsets about what our project would look like and how our internship would look and feel by the end. My partner was expecting to have had worked on cars the entire time while I understood that there may not be enough vehicles that required two people to work on. Although me and Joe worked on our own car by replacing a steering column on a 1985 Dodge W150, we both felt like we could have handled something bigger and more significant. I feel as if that my mentor assigned us different projects we would have had gotten along much better than we did and if we didn't have such conflicting views on how the project would have turned out our experiences could have been greater.
By far the greatest skills I used coming into this LINK that was my ability to get the job at hand done in a professional manner, the best example of this being my project. I didn't skip any steps to leave the internship knowing I could have done something more to make this more useful or beautiful. The biggest skills I developed I think are communication as during the project me and Joe had a few miscommunications with what the final project would look and function like. Another example being a mistake that may or may not have been on my part (oops), when we reassembled the engine and were driving it on the freeway me and the boss heard something fly off the bottom of the car. We drove back to where we heard the object fly off, it being an Audi branded bolt, we supposed that it was for attaching the transmission to the main part of the engine. It turns out it was simply a bolt for the starter which was attached to the main engine hull. Although I don't suppose it was not my job to have had secured that bolt as I was not around during the install of that piece, I took full responsibility for the incident. Nobody was hurt or angry, thankfully. I learned through this the importance of double and triple checking things you believe to have already done.
The biggest takeaway I have from this internship was my relationship with cars as before I didn't have as great of an appreciation of what cars are and what they could be. I drove in cars that you would only wish to see in your life, ones you would have on a poster in your room as a reminder of what your future could behold but working on them gave me a greater perspective than seeing a still picture. I am still considering whether this is the right field for me though as I find it very frustrating when parts do not fit and you have to find creative ways for them to work and the hardest part having them never break. I learned that cars are something I will seriously consider working on in the future as I find them unbelievably engaging and fascinating to me and I believe that they are my real passion from this day forward.
I think that I was an important helping hand with my time their, as Aaron showed his great appreciation for our hard work and ethic of always asking for something to do on our spare time and I believe that it would be a great idea for our mentor to hire more interns in the future because it gives people a chance to see whether they would like to go in this field without having to ever go to college or school to simply see if they like the experience of being a mechanic. I hope in the future that this will either become my main hobby or even my job. I am very interested in the air force at the moment and am considering becoming a mechanic for the Military to get first hand experience on this amazing field that shows so much opportunity.
I also had trouble getting along with my internship partner because we both had very different mindsets about what our project would look like and how our internship would look and feel by the end. My partner was expecting to have had worked on cars the entire time while I understood that there may not be enough vehicles that required two people to work on. Although me and Joe worked on our own car by replacing a steering column on a 1985 Dodge W150, we both felt like we could have handled something bigger and more significant. I feel as if that my mentor assigned us different projects we would have had gotten along much better than we did and if we didn't have such conflicting views on how the project would have turned out our experiences could have been greater.
By far the greatest skills I used coming into this LINK that was my ability to get the job at hand done in a professional manner, the best example of this being my project. I didn't skip any steps to leave the internship knowing I could have done something more to make this more useful or beautiful. The biggest skills I developed I think are communication as during the project me and Joe had a few miscommunications with what the final project would look and function like. Another example being a mistake that may or may not have been on my part (oops), when we reassembled the engine and were driving it on the freeway me and the boss heard something fly off the bottom of the car. We drove back to where we heard the object fly off, it being an Audi branded bolt, we supposed that it was for attaching the transmission to the main part of the engine. It turns out it was simply a bolt for the starter which was attached to the main engine hull. Although I don't suppose it was not my job to have had secured that bolt as I was not around during the install of that piece, I took full responsibility for the incident. Nobody was hurt or angry, thankfully. I learned through this the importance of double and triple checking things you believe to have already done.
The biggest takeaway I have from this internship was my relationship with cars as before I didn't have as great of an appreciation of what cars are and what they could be. I drove in cars that you would only wish to see in your life, ones you would have on a poster in your room as a reminder of what your future could behold but working on them gave me a greater perspective than seeing a still picture. I am still considering whether this is the right field for me though as I find it very frustrating when parts do not fit and you have to find creative ways for them to work and the hardest part having them never break. I learned that cars are something I will seriously consider working on in the future as I find them unbelievably engaging and fascinating to me and I believe that they are my real passion from this day forward.
I think that I was an important helping hand with my time their, as Aaron showed his great appreciation for our hard work and ethic of always asking for something to do on our spare time and I believe that it would be a great idea for our mentor to hire more interns in the future because it gives people a chance to see whether they would like to go in this field without having to ever go to college or school to simply see if they like the experience of being a mechanic. I hope in the future that this will either become my main hobby or even my job. I am very interested in the air force at the moment and am considering becoming a mechanic for the Military to get first hand experience on this amazing field that shows so much opportunity.
My LINK Project
My project started out as a dream of Aaron's, ever since he had opened his shop in 2011, he wanted a platform that allowed him to enter vehicles when they are elevated on the laser tire alignment ramp. Previously the shop mechanics had to use a 4 foot tall ladder, dangerously using the last plastic step that every body knows they should not be stepping on. Aaron knew that this was a lawsuit waiting to happen and asked me and Joe to come up with some ideas on what a stairway or platform would look like. This was our original and final design (final dimensions being different):
The total project cost was just under 200 dollars, the main shop carpenter saying the final price could be as 'little' as 900 if some professionally were to do it. With my experience in construction I knew the process of planning and going through with a project like this, here are images of me and Joe's final project
We found the legs to be slightly unstable inwards to the wall so I in addition added a gusset on each side to help prevent the legs from collapsing inwards: