TaterScots Job-Shadow Engineers at HOERBIGER

Four members of Saint Andrew's School's FTC Robotics Team #641, the TaterScots, recently joined students from several university engineering programs across Florida for an engineering job-shadow day at HOERBIGER's Advanced Manufacturing facility in Pompano Beach. HOERBIGER is a global engineering and manufacturing company specializing in technologies and components for industrial applications. The students who took part in the job-shadow day included Kiley Dahl '27, Shirley Hu '27, Lily Montero '30, and Tim Tian '27. 

During the visit, students toured two manufacturing plants and gained an inside look at the complete production process for pressurized valves, from engineering and design to manufacturing and quality control. They also learned about the day-to-day work of engineers across design, production, industrial, and quality engineering. The experience highlighted HOERBIGER's focus on the future of manufacturing, including its development of "lights-off" automated manufacturing and plans for a new facility in Delray Beach.

"I learned that successful engineering is much more than designing a product. Every stage, from CAD design and prototyping to manufacturing and quality engineering, depends on different teams working together to bring a product into production," said Shirley.

One of the team's biggest takeaways was seeing how engineers balance customer requests with manufacturing capabilities. They sometimes coordinated to produce exactly what a customer envisioned, and other times suggested alternative designs that could be manufactured more efficiently within the company's existing processes. As they put it, successful engineering isn't about finding a perfect solution, but about balancing constraints to find the best solution within real-world limits—a mindset that mirrors what the TaterScots practice every build season on their own robot.

"I'd like to personally thank our own Dr. Carlos Barroso and John Webb from HOERBIGER for making this connection and this shadow day happen. Having the opportunity to meet with professionals in the field and see what that work actually looks like is an invaluable experience for our students," said Joey Uriarte, the team's robotics mentor.

The TaterScots now look forward to the upcoming FTC season, eager to see which lessons from their day at HOERBIGER carry over into their own design-and-build process.