Alex
Cooper
Engineer, Rocketeer, Maker
Louisville Based Electrical Engineer
As an intern, I offer nearly the full coursework experience of a recent graduate, and more applied project experience than most recent graduates.
See my CV or contact me for full details on skills and experience.
Projects and Experience
River City Rocketry
As a member of RCR from Summer 2018 to Summer 2020, I learned to emphasize teamwork, documentation, communication, and technical excellence.
Duties included:
Preliminary design and sizing of control and power electronics for RCR’s award winning 2019 payload, Pegasus.
Developing UAV deployment mechanism.
Building a dual stage black powder charge tester for RCR recovery testing.
Individually, manufacturing, and launching a rocket for L1 HPR Certification.
Auxiliary efforts helping with team electronics wherever needed.
see documents tab for more info
Pictured: Pegasus during inital protyping and testing, then presented at IREC 2019.
nUCOR TUBULAR PRODUCTS internship
Madison, Indiana. summer 2020
As a teammate at NTP Madison, I learned to focus on safety and reliability in manufacturing and industry. The training I received on safety controls, hazard classification and mitigation helped shape my view and understanding of engineering and workplace culture.
My work and duties also included technical experience in electrical engineering, including ladder logic, and exposure to manufacturing and automation electronics such as relay racks, PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers), HMIs (Human-Machine Interfaces), and learning about each through accompanying documentation.
I also gained valuable insight regarding management, leadership, project planning, and finances in a manufacturing setting.
Volunteering with fellow NTP interns
Note: the 1st and 3rd pictures above are sourced from public-facing marketing or educational material online, and represent similar concepts to my work, but are not my actual work, nor are they Nucor or NTP material.
Larri - Captstone and summer 2023
At LARRI I worked on and learned about a number of interdisciplinary projects with applications spanning manufacturing, robotics, security, and controls systems.
Working with engineers at every level from incoming freshmen to post-docs and professors provided excercises in communication and teamwork as well as a unique perspective for me on both the reception and provision of mentorship.
Technical skills applied included PCB Layout, analog circuit design and analysis, embedded systems, programming in Arduino and Python, Live Data Visualization, literature review/research and documentation.
I also had to learn about fields and concepts new to me including robotics, control systems, ROS, and R&D processes for testing, test design, and system characterization & validation.
Geiger Counter
Embedded Systems (ece 412) final group project
Worked as part of a 4 person team to implement and demonstrate a functional geiger counter, measuring absorbed ionizing radiation doses in microRem per hour. Selected for permanent display in department showcase.
See the documents tab for adapted class final report.