Today was my first ever experience visiting a (construction) site for work purposes. And man it was huge. I didn't even see half of it.

The site is a huge area of land where a factory is currently being constructed (our company is responsible for some of the systems between the factory buildings). I would take pictures, but photos are not allowed. But man, after going through a morning of safety training, I donned a hardhat, fluorescent vest and steel-toed boots, and then headed out onto the actual site for a quick tour of what I would be involved with.

The moment I stepped on to the site, I seriously felt like I was inside some kind of Discovery Channel program - those ones about major construction projects. All around me were huge half-built buildings, huge water tanks and massive piping. There are literally hundreds of construction workers on site. It was probably one of the most epic things I've seen on any of my work terms to date. It appears to be a fairly big project. The walk back to our trailer has me pass by numerous other trailers housing numerous other contractors and engineering firms, which are also involved in the project.

But it's hot as crazy. People likened it to a desert. And stepping out onto site, I have to agree. The site is located on reclaimed land, and there is sand everywhere. And being Singapore, it's hot. So it's like a hot desert, albeit, a hot and humid desert. Couple that with the fact that safety requirements dictate that you always wear long pants and long sleeves. Plus don't forget your hardhat and safety glasses.

Luckily, it rained for a portion of the day. And with visible lightning, all work on site was halted for about half an hour. During that period, I was able to rest and enjoy the cool air conditioned trailer. (Actually, it's not a trailer... our site offices are located inside three separate shipping containers).

I was supposed to be on site for the entire day tomorrow too, but we were having some issues with the special and expensive multi-meter we needed to carry out some of our tests, so I will only be going down to site in the afternoon after someone picks up a new one for us to use.

While mostly all the work I've done so far is entry-level, everything I'm doing is new to me, and that's acceptable for me.

Hopefully I'll get the chance to move onto some coding eventually - as the type of coding used in PLC programming is vastly different from PC programming. And by vastly, I mean vastly. Last week, one of the full-time staff showed me some of the code that he was working on. And when I looked at it, I was literally like ... huh...? What the heck is this?

It was basically a bunch of solid and broken lines around the screen, with various symbols. Ladder logic, he told me.

I have yet to look it up on Wikipedia for myself.

I was talking to the other co-op student last night at a company BBQ, and apparently, she has already had the chance to move onto doing some programming. Hopefully I'll get to before the end.