The First Rate week
It has been an exciting first week of our internship at SBE. We had the pleasure of having coffee with previous SBE intern, now Peddle Thorp star employee, Leah Tausan. Leah helped us get a feel for what to expect and strive for throughout our internship. We then created goals and targets for the internship with a rough timeline of events. Through our internship we aim to learn key ESD software packages, how to write ESD reports, further understand energy efficient ratings included in the NCC and GreenStar and each have personal projects.
This week has been appropriately named First Rate week. Rob has been kind enough to put up with us learning the basics of his favourite program First Rate 5. In our spare time we have also been tasked to try to self-learn the IES VE software package which we will be touching in greater detail next week. A key skill of an ESD consultant is plan reading, Sean put our skills to test with through a large set of plans for a proposed aquatic centre. Our search through the plans required us to read through architectural, mechanical, hydraulic, electrical and even ask for more plans.
On Wednesday we had the opportunity to tag along with Anthony and Alan for a site visit to Toyota’s alterations to their powertrain facility in Altona. Here we got to witness the different opinions of the stakeholders involved and how conflicts of interest were resolved. Here we were also able to ask Anthony and Alan questions regarding the typical responsibilities expected throughout the design and construction process. We discussed some of the design elements which allowed this facility to achieve a GreenStar rating.
Finally, our week brought us to our first project…. We have each been given 2 properties to conduct a NATHERS assessment for the upcoming ‘The Block’ TV season. We are currently trying to put our newfound First Rate 5 skills to use and pestering Rob just the right amount.
We look forward to our future weeks at SBE
More to come…