rocscience inc. summer interns 2016...exposed to latest technologies such as eyeshot, 3d finite...
TRANSCRIPT
Bohan Zhang - “We go? We go!” summarizes my ex-
perience at Rocscience. It’s a term Rocscience engineers
use when they are going to play double ping-pong, a sig-
nature of Rocscience’s stress-free working environment
and team-spirits. With Rocscience team’s mentoring, and
especially my mentor Tina’s help, I was able to contribute
to RS3 2.0’s development in 3D entity manipulation, re-
sult interpretation and UI improvements. When develop-
ing features for RS3 2.0, I dived into WPF programming,
gained extensive experience in real software develop-
ment, learnt how to work with other engineers and got
exposed to latest technologies such as Eyeshot, 3D finite
element analysis and many more. At Rocscience, we go,
we go as a team and we never stop going.
Scott Corkum - Working at Rocscience has been an
enjoyable and fulfilling experience. The environment is
wonderful; everyone is extremely welcoming and willing
to help whenever I encounter a problem. My role at Roc-
science was to research and develop key features of RS3, a
3D finite element analysis application used in mining and
civil engineering applications. My time at Rocscience was
spent creating models across a platform of 3D modelling
software while investigating compatibility between RS3
and industry leading alternatives. The bulk of my time was
spent coding in C#/WPF, where I developed a variety of
windows that will not only appear in RS3, but in a collec-
tion of Rocscience‘s products. The skills and techniques I
have learned at Rocscience are invaluable and I am very
grateful to have been granted this opportunity.
Bohan Scott Derek Liam Bowen Owen Winston
Rocscience Inc. Summer Interns 2016
Owen Westland - This was my second term at Roc-
science and it was just as positive a working experience as
my first term. My time was focused on the development
of Rocfall version 6. This new version of Rocfall comes
with new analysis methods and tools. I was responsible for
the development of the interface for these new analysis
methods and creating some of these tools. I created a tool
that allows users to create and import custom polygons.
This allows users to represent the rocks being modeled with
a greater degree of accuracy. I also created a new method
of sensitivity analysis for barrier design that allows users to
optimize the construction of barriers. This summer was an
excellent working experience. It expanded my knowledge
of software development and has given me a great deal of
programming experience to build upon in the future.
Derek Lam - Among many, variety is a trait that sticks out from my
Rocscience internship. Not your garden variety either, what made this
experience so special is that I didn’t have to compromise the depth and
purpose of my contribution to explore all different parts of the company,
sometimes even over the course of a single project. I worked to redesign
icons and was given the liberty alongside to reskin the UI for RS3 version 2.
Additionally in this vein, I designed marketing material, making heavy use
of the software suite to solve models derived from case studies and render
the results to the final product. For something a bit different, I constructed
a workflow from SQL Server to Outlook from scratch to reliably process
soon-to-expire maintenance plans, and created a web form to plug into
Salesforce as part of our CRM migration. All of it felt meaningful because,
as is a true and unfortunate rarity for most internships, here what I con-
tributed was taken very seriously. Critique over criticism is the prevailing
philosophy engrained in every employee, and arguably epitomized by my
manager, Thamer, who I cannot thank enough for never relenting in his
crusade to improve my work.
Liam MacKichan - My internship experience at Rocscience Inc. greatly exceeded my
expectations. I was given the freedom to pursue not only challenging, but interesting topics
and the opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way to the work being done here. My
time at Rocscience was spent developing a three-dimensional slope stability software pro-
gram, Slide3D, under the supervision of Dr. Brent Corkum. Nearly immediately, I was given
the opportunity to develop valuable skills and experience in advanced slope stability meth-
ods, global optimization concepts and programming in C++, all of which will benefit me
greatly for future research and professional engineering practice. What surprised me most
about my time at Rocscience was the environment. Between the friendly, helpful employ-
ees, social events, and constant buzz in the air about the best ping pong team, Rocscience
really fosters an environment that promotes creativity and success.
If you are interested in a student internship at Rocscience Inc.
please contact us at: [email protected]
Bowen Wu - The past sixteen-week internship
at the Rocscience was a time well spent. I got a
chance to explore different aspects of geotech-
nics. I did slope stability in Slide, rock sliding
in Swedge and RocPlane, and material model
testing in RS2 and RS3. I learned the pros and cons
of finite element analysis and limit equilibrium
method. I also became familiar with different
library databases.
Rocscience has great people and great things.
Office atmosphere here is very relaxing. We have
free drinks, proximity to numerous good restau-
rants, and people talking to each other all the
time. Thamer, Alireza, and Igor gave me strong
work supports; Daniel, Jason, Gavin, other interns
and I had some of the greatest jokes and stories
during lunch.
Rocscience is more than a leader of geotechnical
modeling services; the company cares about the
growth and the happiness of its people. We are
given the very freedom to explore new topics,
and we receive strong supports from colleagues.
Well, sometimes interns get “chopped, chopped,
chopped” first, and then receive the help. “Chop-
ping” is a Rocscience process for “newcomers” to
get through. Near the end of my internship here,
I want to express my tremendous appreciation
for the knowledge learnt and the fun enjoyed in
the company.
Winston Wong - My internship at Rocscience has been
a truly enjoyable and rewarding experience. In the past
4 months, I have been delegated the task to construct a
new computation engine for RocTopple and to create a
corresponding visualization. The challenging nature of the
work has allowed me to develop the ability to make criti-
cal decisions under uncertainty. From conducting research
on block-flexure toppling, to choosing and implementing
the model and designing the GUI, I was given the option
to make most of the decisions on my own. Of course, if
I run into any problems, there are always tons of smart
people here at Rocscience whom I can seek help from.
I especially would like to thank Dr. Brent Corkum for his
generous guidance and insightful ideas. At Rocscience, I
acquired knowledge not only in the field of geotechnical
engineering, but also in building software. The intern-
ship has given me the exposure to essential principles of
large-scale software development with C++ and MFC. This
internship has also honed my mathematical skills, specifi-
cally in numerical methods and advanced root-finding
techniques. I have also come to appreciate the work hard,
play hard environment that Rocscience cultivates the
moment when I finally figured out a solution to a prob-
lem that I have been struggling for hours after playing 15
minutes of ping-pong.*
If you are creative, enthusiastic about problem solving,
and wish to make an impact by solving difficult challenges,
Rocscience will be an amazing workplace for you. I can’t
wait to see how the hard and soft skills that I gained here
carry over into my future career.
* I guess that only applies if you are genuinely good
at ping-pong and you are able to beat your colleagues
on a regular basis. #noshame #jk #donthateme