Avery Reef, a mechanical engineering student at Florida Polytechnic University, is getting a front-row seat to how products progress from a simple idea to the factory floor. The hands-on experience is helping shape his future engineering career.
Reef is an intern with Watts Water Technologies, a global leader in water system solutions. The Florida Poly junior said the opportunity at the company’s Fort Myers, Florida, location is giving him a chance to work on projects that modernize water systems and make them smarter while building practical knowledge in product development and manufacturing.
“It’s been great,” he said. “What I really like is that the team trusts me. Instead of just watching from the sidelines, they gave me my own project right away.”
Reef, a junior from Cape Coral, Florida, said the internship appealed to him because it combines his interest in building technology with a desire to create original projects. The work has helped expand his interests beyond software and into hardware.
“I realized that physical hardware is a whole different ballgame,” Reef said. “I’m really eager to learn what actually goes into making products at a large scale, especially how small design choices and materials can make or break a product once you’re mass-producing it.”
At Watts Water Technologies, Reef is updating engineering designs, checking for manufacturability and helping turn early prototypes into finished products. The experience has shown how quickly ideas can move from concept to reality when engineers focus on both performance and efficiency.
“The biggest surprise is the ‘fail fast’ mindset,” Reef said. “In school, you’re always trying to make your first design perfect before you turn it in. Here, I’ve learned that it’s much better to build a quick test version, see what’s wrong with it and fix it fast rather than trying to get it perfect on the first try.”
Reef said Florida Poly’s hands-on approach prepared him to tackle real engineering challenges and contribute immediately during the internship.
“My classes have been super helpful,” he said. “I use what I learned in statics to make sure the parts I’m designing are actually strong and safe, and my CAD (computer-aided design) classes taught me how to turn my ideas into models that the machines can actually build.”
Contact:
Lydia Guzmán
Director of Communications
863-874-8557
