Mechanical Internship at BorgWarner – Abhinav’s F1 Romance
About the Author: Abhinav Sharma, an automobile enthusiast from Manipal Institute of Technology, shares a gripping account of his internship experience at BorgWarner Emissions System India Pvt. Ltd.
I am a huge car and bike lover with some hands-on experience in servicing and working on my own vehicles at home. Since my teens, I had a very passionate relationship with our trusty old Zen, our Ford Fiesta, and my first bike – the Pulsar 200. I used to spend hours watching Discovery Turbo and the YouTube DIY videos, in order to learn more about cars and bikes. Fast forward to my third year of engineering and I was the team leader for Formula Manipal, our college’s oldest and most prestigious student project that builds formula-style racecars for international Formula Student competitions. For my one-month industrial training, I was offered an internship at BorgWarner Emissions System India Pvt. Ltd. in Gurgaon. As soon as I got a confirmation from the company’s end, I was absolutely delighted.
Why? Well, if you look closely at the Formula 1 race cars, you will find the BorgWarner sticker stuck on almost all of them.
How? Because they make turbochargers, intercoolers, radiators, gearboxes etc. for Formula 1 power units. By now, I was salivating.
But then, I held on to my horses and read the company’s registered name again, “Emissions System.” Now, for a true petrolhead like me, the word “emissions” didn’t really instill excitement in my veins. I still chose to go ahead with the internship. With the GPS guiding the way and music blasting on the stereo, I drove to work on the first day of my internship. Soon enough, the receptionist arrived and we were asked to report to Mr. N (let’s just call him that). Mr. N and a few other officials gave us a warm welcome in the conference room, following which each of us was assigned a product line to observe and compile a report on. I was allotted the product called Exhaust Gas Recirculation Cooler (EGR Cooler). I began taking notes from the word go. I made notes of all the machines that were used in the manufacturing of the EGR cooler. With the help of Google, I realized the importance of EGR Coolers in cleverly increasing the efficiency of IC engines. That’s when my curiosity of IC engines got me hooked onto the internship. After the lunch break, I sat aside in the conference hall scribbling away my itinerary for the next four weeks. I came up with a plan to report my progress of the preceding week to Mr. N each Monday. He really liked the idea and seemed impressed!
A few days passed by and the other two interns dropped out. While one of them had found another company close to his place, the other simply didn’t seem interested. So there I was, the only intern left. Nevertheless, I was not underwhelmed. I religiously followed the assembly line to understand how the EGR cooler was being made. I would talk to the operators who were indeed very kind and equally helpful in answering all my queries. I got to know about ultrasonic cleaners, hydro-forming machines, corrugation machines, brazing pastes and more. I was thrilled to know about all these amazing machines and took note of them in order to compile a very comprehensive report. The most impressive tool that I found in their factory was the “surface tension pen” that was used to check the cleanliness of the parts that came out of the ultrasonic cleaning machine. On drawing a 2cm line on the part, if the line broke, the part was concluded greasy/dirty and was sent back for re-cleaning. This was some scientific wizardry put into a tiny, little pen that impressed me the most.
All this while, I also made a lot of friends on the work floor. We used to have lunch together, apart from going out for the customary walks to get some fresh air. Mr. N verbally acknowledged my integrity and enthusiasm towards the internship and continued to provide valuable feedback for my reports. Thus came the last day of my internship wherein I submitted my 62-page report to Mr. N, who told me how it was the most elaborate report that he had ever seen. He was impressed by the way I had mentioned even the control settings and parameters of the various machines used on the assembly line and the ample pictures that I had taken during the process. All in all, the last day involved me visiting everybody I knew and thanking them for letting me wander around in their office for a month with my notepad and clicking numerous pictures around their machines. They wished me good luck for my future and I soon joined college after the summer break. My professor was impressed with my report too and long story short, I got an A+ on my industrial training report!
So, for people who still feel that it’s a hard and sweaty job interning at a mechanical engineering firm – well, maybe you are right. And maybe I am different when I say that I like the dirt under my fingernails, the engine oil on my fingers, and the sheer delight of seeing sheets of metal being transformed into beautifully fabricated pieces of automobile machinery. But then, that’s just me.
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