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The University of North Georgia (¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ) provided 10 students with innovative experience this summer through a three-week "AI in manufacturing" Maymester course followed by eight-week internships at companies in surrounding counties.

Dr. Dilina Perera, assistant professor of physics, taught the course, which was put in motion by Dr. Patrick Bunton, department head and professor of Physics & Astronomy.

Georgia Partners in Innovation (PIN) funded the internships, which paired the following companies and students:

ABM: Miguel Ballesteros and Connor Touchton

DataPath: Savannah Jones and Rodney Santana Ruiz

Fox Factory: Garrett Short and Sophia Xiong 

Siemens: Benjamin Grau, Eric Guo, Rowan Ponelis, and Reese Pieroni

At the end of the internships, students took part in a poster session sponsored by Georgia PIN.

Touchton, a sophomore from Lawrenceville, Georgia, pursuing dual degrees in mathematics and engineering, worked on a pair of high-impact projects at ABM, which is a company focused on modernizing infrastructure. One included creating a database of prospects and ranking them, while the other project involved setting up custom GPTs to compare ABM's pricing with its competitors.

The custom GPT work allowed Touchton to deepen his knowledge of how artificial intelligence and machine learning work. He has remained in touch with ABM and is grateful to know his work is still helpful to the team.

"I created two tools that the team is using right now," Touchton said. "That's really rewarding."

Jones, a senior pursuing a degree in mathematics with minor in computer science, said the AI in manufacturing course "was very interesting and different than any other course I have taken." The Commerce, Georgia, resident completed an internship at DataPath, a market leader in trusted communications systems, services and end-to-end solutions for mission-critical operations.

She and Santana Ruiz worked with DataPath engineers to create an AI pipeline that will increase efficiency at the company by comparing blueprints for satellites with the bill of materials needed to build them. Jones is thankful for the experience and connections she made at DataPath while gaining valuable AI skills.

"This is the way the world is moving," Jones said. "There will be a lot of ways to apply what I learned this summer in any company."

Xiong, a sophomore from Comer, Georgia, pursuing a degree in computer science, appreciated how helpful Fox Factory was in giving the students what they needed to assist the company. The internship gave her more career insights.

"It helps me understand what I want," Xiong said. "I never considered machine learning as a career. It was a good chance to see what I could do in the future if I want to pursue a career in AI."

Short, a junior from Peoria, Illinois, pursuing a degree in cybersecurity, appreciated the chance to learn more about AI and machine learning in the course before starting his internship. He is interested in working at a three-letter government agency or a private security company. That made his experience presenting to leaders at Fox Factory particularly valuable for his future.

"It showed that I produced something very functional that could improve their processes significantly," Short said.

Rowan Ponelis, a junior from Cumming, Georgia, pursuing dual degrees in physics and engineering, enjoyed learning about how to process data before entering it into machine learning.

Ponelis was part of a group at Siemens that used artificial intelligence to analyze data about where best to store certain parts for making gearboxes, motors and inverters for trains based on which parts were generally retrieved around the same time for assembly. They were able to increase efficiency by 75% in movements through the facility for parts retrieval.

"We were placed with a very central process in the warehouse," Ponelis said. "Our work was able to make a tremendous difference."

He was also thankful to make connections that will assist him when transferring to Georgia Tech to complete his degree in engineering. 

"It was definitely a really good networking opportunity," Ponelis said.