As an electronics engineering intern in the Oral Care R&D division of the Procter & Gamble Kronberg (Frankfurt) Research Centre in Germany, I worked on the investigation of a new feature for the higher tier of electric toothbrushes in the iO line-up. The R&D team oversees the design and development the new features for the future iterations of the electric toothbrushes, working on devices which will be available to consumer a few years down the line. A lot of the team’s work revolves around finding components for the intended purpose and relentlessly subjecting the prototypes to tests to identify any potential hardware or software issues.
During my internship, I was assigned a project exploring a new technology which could be implemented in the product to improve user interaction. This project was my responsibility, and I was expected to produce final prototypes by the end of my internship, transferring the knowledge gained on the topic to the team and helping them plan for future implementation. I received invaluable help from two engineers throughout the internship and learnt a lot from them. This ranged from teaching me how to use the PCB layout software, to more practical electronics concepts and prototyping common practices, as well as helping me make decisions at key moments of the project.
The final prototype created was a successful proof of concept, which showed off the technology and proved that the concept was feasible and could be integrated successfully in the current product configuration.
