As much as I love the creative side of things, I know how to appreciate the logical and calculated side and I really believe the creative and consulting experience has made me a more dynamic engineer. These are some of the more recent projects I've worked on, along with a link to my Master's Thesis. I've been lucky to work with a variety of materials from OLEDs to Polymers to CMCs and Metals. Unfortunately, some of my coolest projects are protected by IP and ITAR and are from my awesome internships at Bolt Threads and SpaceX, and cannot be shared here.
At Bolt Threads, I gained the R+D, DOE and scientific skills needed run great experiments. At SpaceX, I grew into my current identity as a failure and reliability analyst with exposure to a variety of materials, methods, and applications. Being a great materials engineer means being able to understand a little bit of every step of the engineering process, from design to test to function. I like to think that college and my degrees made me a scientist, but it's my experiences that made me an engineer. These projects are just a few examples of the types of work that I do and love doing.
Rhino 3D is a CAD program more typically used by architects and industrial designers, but has very similar functions as the more commonly used CAD programs for engineering. While I was an undergrad researcher in Professor Luke Lee's lab, I had access to an old 3D printer (one of the first commerical versions from 3D Systems) that we tried to bring back to life. During that process, one of my projects was to learn Rhino 3D...by creating an iPhone 5 rendering by using on the 2D blueprints available online, and watching YouTube videos of someone doing a similar project for an iPhone 3G, which is almost a completely different design.
I was able to follow the videos to learn the basics of building up the shapes and general functions, and by the time the videos started going into 3G specific shapes, I was able to independently create the remainder of the phone. This was a really fun project, and it made me appreciate the art of mechanical design more since I had to pay attention to every little detail of the phone. I tried to print the final model on our 3D printer...but with some surprising results, as seen in the last picture :)
SpoonRocket was a food delivery service that started out in Berkeley and eventually expanded into SF and other parts of the east bay. Originally, the business started off delivering food in plastic, reusable containers, under the model that the customer would exchange a container during each order. Eventually, the CEO decided that it was time to select a new container material. They provided the following design limitations:
I was brought on as a consultant and asked to look into different materials, suppliers and options for the new packaging, as well as new designs. This was an especially unique experience for me since I was an actual customer of the business, and could use my own input for the decision. We were eventually able to settle on a pressed paperboard material that met the above requirements and was affordable enough for the business at the time.
I took a class during my year of grad school on the modeling and simulation of advanced manufacturing methods. This was an awesome class for two reasons: I learned the mathematical and theoretical basis behind finite element analysis, as well as applied it in a first principles modeling approach using MatLab and basic hand derivations.
Topics covered included deformation, thermal, structural, and fracture analysis, 3D printing, sintering, CVD, laser processing, robotic analysis, and finally, material properties optimization through genetic algorithms. I've provided links to a few of the projects below.
The follow materials selection, process selection, and FEA analysis was done as a project for a class on manufacturing methods during my time as an undergrad at Berkeley. Since I was the only materials major in the group with three other mechanical engineers, it made sense for me to take on this role. While this was done before I gained much more experience with actual processing and manufacturing at SpaceX, it still reveals how essential materials design and analysis is to creating final products and gave me my first introduction to the importance of choosing optimal manufacturing and processing methods. This class gave me a conceptual introduction, and this was rounded out by a LOT of first hand experience at SpaceX with the actual application of these selections. If these materials selections are made during the process, rather than after, a lot of time and money (and potentially risk) can be saved.
For this project, our group chose to design a waterproof cover for wheelchairs that would help protect the user from environmental forces, specifically rainstorms. Design considerations involved designing against corrosion, designing to withstand potentially strong winds, affordability, and weight savings, so that the user could easily manage the attachment. Components and FEA were done with SolidWorks.
I also took a graduate level structural engineering course during my last year at Berkeley. One of the projects was to calibrate a strain gage against 4 other displacement measurement tools, including an LVCD, wire potentiometer, Novotechnik, and a mechanical gage. This was a fun experiment since it required first principles calculations for expected values on the rod (beam displacement anyone?), as well as creative experimental set up since each of the measurement tools had different physical limitations on how you could use it to measure displacement.
We also had access to only a limited set of weight intervals, which we added to the orange bucket, as seen below, so we needed to be smart about how we loaded the beam since we also wanted to prevent significant plastic deformation for this part of the experiment. In the end, we were able to determine the reliability of each of the test methods against the gage.
I entered UC Berkeley's annual Grad Slam Graduate Research Presentation contest during my graduate year, and won second place for my speech titled "Finding Answers in Failures". The competition invites graduate students from all disciplines to give a short speech to promote the communication of research and ideas across the graduate school, and across the graduate program within the entire UC system The speech covered an intro to materials science, the field of failure analysis and fracture mechanics, and my research in only three minutes.
You can watch my speech below (delivered with only the slightest bit of nerves!).