Item 3

The grand finale of our CAD course, a third year mech eng course, was the development on a crash test dummy and car. To make things harder, the crash test dummy needed to be assembled sequentially (without hand assistance) and placed into a remote-controlled car which to battle another dummy/car. We were placed in groups of 24 and assigned into one of eight groups; each group had its own duties like the development of the a certain body part or a certain function of the car. My role was in the management team.

Many skills were demonstrated throughout this project. Being part of management, I needed to make sure that there was constant communication between the different groups. The reason why this communication was so important was because these groups needed to design parts which intermix with each other. For example, the arms team needed to make sure their design is compatible with the torso team and does not interfere with the head team. This required me to heavily multi-task. Further, in order to perform my duties efficiently, I needed to make sure that I had had a handle on all the designs which are happening congruently.

Another major role for me throughout this project was the need for me to resolve conflict. On a few occasions, one team would decide to modify their parts such that it affected another teams design; of course this did not settle well with the conflicting team. I had to be mediator and make sure tensions did not get to high. This is good experience for when I become a business owner. Most business owners will encounter a time when two of their employees do not agree, I believe it was good of me to get this type of experience. 

Item 2

Creativity is an extremely important attribute for a design engineer. Great designs do not spontaneously show up on a piece of paper, they start in one’s mind. For a design competition required for a 3^rd year CAD course, I was able to come up with a unique design which placed my group in the top 10 out of 60. We were ranked on a light-weight basis, i.e. the winner was the lightest structure which saved the eggs.

The competition was named “egg drop soup”. Required by the team was to protect a platform of raw eggs from a can of dropped soup. However, to make it more difficult is that our proposed design could not touch the ground or the platform which the eggs lied on. A schematic of the “arena” is seen below.

A majority of the class developed a rigid, truss-like structure. However, I quickly realized that these structures proved to be very heavy and in-efficient. I quickly came up with a “cantilever” like design which was very light weight and most efficiently used that designated material. My proposed is shown below. 

This item exemplifies my ability to come up with novel ideas. The ability of coming up with ideas is crucial for a design engineer. Being a design engineer is much more than analytical skills, all the analytical skills in the world won’t help, unless you’re a scientist. Finally, I understand that I need to continue to do design work. I understand that this is a skill learnt through experience. I will design until the day I die. So say we all!

Item 1

The first item which I am introducing is a large project undertaken for the 2^nd year course: Mechanics of Solids. Using this item, I will demonstrate the development of my analytical and leadership skills.

This project had us, a team of 12, designing a gear and pinion set for a large marine vessel. I had two major roles throughout this project. One of my roles, one which was assigned to me, was the development of gear geometry using provided loading data. Another role, one which I assumed, was to act as team manager and professor liaison.

Analytical skills are extremely important for a design engineer. Once a conceptual design is proposed, an engineer must be able to determine whether or not this idea is feasible. For this project, I needed to determine the gear geometry to suit functional requirements such as: loading conditions, service life and manufacturability. Since this was my first experience with gearing geometry, I decided to visit the library and develop a set of analytical equations to solve my problem.

Using my analytical skills, I was able to combine a series of equations where, once I inputted my functional requirements (like max applied torque), I was able to calculate the overall pitch diameter.  Later on in the project, my colleagues verified my choice of geometric requirements using computer data. This exemplifies my ability to immerse myself in unknown parameters and develop meaningful answers. This is a skill which all design engineers require.

Further, this project allowed me to hone my managerial skills. Even though there was no assigned manager, I quickly felt the need for one. Almost immediately, I noticed that the lack of a manager to keep track of things and to keep people on track was needed. Therefore, I assumed responsibility. I took it upon myself to organize team meetings and set deadlines. I also took it upon myself to make sure that intra-group deliverables were met. I believe I demonstrated strong leadership and was thanked by the group in the end because of it.

Welcome!

A third year undergraduate course at the University of Toronto requires us to develop an academic portfolio; that is what this page will become!

Afterwards, I plan to use this page to archive extra-curricular projects, I'm kind of excited actually.

If you are here to view my Portfolio for MIE-397, please start with my Overview (link on left-hand sidebar).

Regards,
Adam

PS. If anyone has any style related comments, please do so here! I really would like to encourage constructive feedback. Thanks.