Below is a collection of major projects that I have worked on during school and at past internships.
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Hangler DanglerAs a freshman at Rose-Hulman, I took EM103 Introduction to Design with Dr. Moseley. This class challenged my ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems as a team. My team, consisting of Eric Poynter, Bryce Barringer, Thomas Janssen, and myself, was tasked with identifying a problem concerning the backpacks that were given to every freshman on campus, the Ogio Epic 108090. We decided to fix the problem of backpack organization during class with the hanger shown in Figure 1.
My role as a part of this team varied throughout the course. I spent two weeks as the team coordinator, two weeks as the timekeeper, two weeks as the recorder, and two weeks as the monitor. The definitions of the various roles can be found below. We worked together to craft an official design report, which was turned in at the end of the course, a presentation poster, which we presented to the other members of the class and staff members, and an actual working model of our product. These documents can also be found to the right. Writing the design report was the most challenging part of the project because we had to decide how to write it as a team without making one person feel as if they were doing all the work or that someone’s ideas weren’t being implemented. This was my first true engineering team challenge and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to other’s ideas and problem solving skills as we worked towards a common goal. |
Application Quickstart GuideAs a design engineer intern at Johnson Controls, Inc. the summer after my freshman year at Rose-Hulman, the other interns and I compiled an Application Quickstart Guide. The purpose of this Application Quickstart Guide was to provide assistance to future interns as well as full time employees on the various programs used at Johnson Controls. Our manager assigned this task to us six interns and we could approach it any way we desired. We chose to compile a paper copy in a binder as well as an electronic copy. We divided the ten programs among us based on who has the most experience in each one. Being a design engineer intern, I was assigned Microsoft Visio and Metasys System Configuration Tool because I used those most often.
Keeping future employees in mind, I designed my guide using screenshots of the actual program and pointing out the most common features used by a typical Johnson Controls employee. I used the technique of giving the user a broad overview of the program and then a typical document or task I used, refining my idea each time. I would then focus in on the details of each particular program while still leaving it broad enough for the new employee to discover features and their own tricks. This skill is important as I believe the best learning comes from trial and error. By writing my guides with this in mind I believe I managed to help any new user to learn the most efficiently. |
iPhone 5 SolidEdge Design
As a freshman at Rose-Hulman I took Graphical Communications, a class based on learning and drafting 3-D shapes on paper and on CAD drawings in Solid Edge. During the ten week course, I was tasked with designing any object of my choosing. I chose to design a Solid Edge version of my iPhone 5. This project was given early in the course so I had to apply the knowledge that I was learning each week in order to keep refining my iPhone design.
I used many features of the program including: fillet, extrude, revolve, loft, and shell. These features enhanced my skills in Solid Edge and using a little bit of self-discovery of the program allowed me to adapt to specific changes to my design compared to others and improve it. The most difficult part of the project was designing the headphones. My solution was to define a line in 3D space that would curve and look loose like a headphone cord would. Then I measured the diameter of the actual cord and created a circle of the same diameter with its center placed on my curved line. I then used the lofting technique to extrude the circle into a cylinder along my line, thus creating the cord for my headphones. |
Current Mobile ApplicationDuring my junior year at Rose-Hulman, I took a class called RH330 Technical and Professional Communication with Dr. Summers. During this class, my teammates and I were tasked with designing an app that solves a problem for Rose-Hulman students. Since this was a communications class and not a programming class, we did not actually make the app. Still, we got to see our app idea from start to (almost) finish.
My team, including Jonathan Banks, Anna Tierney, Lucinda Combs, and Cassidy Cain, decided to attack a student’s wasted time on their phones by creating a trivia-style game that featured current event questions. We aptly named out app Current. Our group had to draft many documents for this project including a Usability Memo, User Scenario, Technical Description, and a final presentation. My role during this project varied depending on which phase of the project we were completing. Once our idea was in place, in the early stages of the course I focused mostly on the contributing to writing our documents. This process of the project helped improve my ability to write technically while still incorporating many other team member’s ideas during the process. During the latter portion of our project, the team’s focus shifted to presentation and revisions of our documents. The presentation tested my ability to communicate our app idea effectively and convince the audience of our design. Since our peers and Dr. Summers had edited most of our documents, it was our responsibility to take into consideration their revisions and improve our documents to improve the link between our idea and our audience. |