Week 2 of the Autodesk Summer of Fabrication 2016

Our CEO is Carl Bass. Carl once said "'If I ask a Product Manager, can our product do this?' He always responds 'Of course it can do that.' I want to know from real world experience what our products can and cannot do. I look to experts who take on special projects that demonstrate the power of what we build and the realistic limitations as well." It's with that spirit in mind that we hire interns to come in during the summer, put Fusion 360 through its paces, and report back to our CEO and the Fusion 360 team. This is our fourth summer of fabrication.

This year we will have 4 interns, and 3 of our interns have already started:

• Ali Ahmed

  Ali is working on his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. He will graduate from George Washington University in 2018. He has lots of experience with AutoCAD and 3D Printing. One of his projects was using MATLAB to compute a more optimal gearbox ratio for a Baja race vehicle and then designing, fabricating, and installing the metal gears. He's even mentored a freshman-founded company that is developing a 3D printed violin.

• Connor Freeman

  Connor attends UC Berkeley, majoring in mechanical engineering, and will graduate in 2018. He has experience with AutoCAD, Fusion 360, and MATLAB. He's a shop assistant at school, so my guess is that he's seen other students make every kind of fabrication mistake that can possibly be made and knows what “not to do.” Connor is currently designing and fabricating a live object LED wire that's hooked up to an Arduino which fluctuates and glows according to incoming Twitter data.

• Eni Asebiomo

  Eni is majoring in mechanical engineering and computer science at Stanford. He's been working with Raspberry Pi as well as studying materials, thermodynamics, and fluid mechanics. He assembled his own 3D printer and then modified it (designing and fabricating new/replacement parts) to print with pre-melted chocolate.

In a previous blog post, the interns recapped their first week at Autodesk. To get their feet wet designing with Fusion 360 and fabricating at Pier 9, the trio are designing and making a lamp with a magnetically levitated shade. As a side project, I told them a story:

• I am from New Orleans.
• I cook with garlic.
• When I use my garlic press, shards of garlic remain stuck in the holes.
• Using a toothpick, I have to manually clean the holes one by one.
• I have a laptop.
• The laptop has a keyboard.
• I clean my laptop keyboard using a can of compressed air.
• What is we designed something that allowed me to clean my garlic press using compressed air?

So in addition to working on the lamp, they are working on the Ahmed-Asebiomo-Freeman Galicenator that removes garlic remnants using a 3D printed part that connects the garlic press to the can of compressed air. Will it work? We'll find out.

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• Monday:
  • Realized that electromagnetism is no joke.
  • Fell into despair and were repulsed by the sight of magnets.
  • Experimented and used voronoi extension on Fusion 360.
  • Completely redesigned stem and electronics housing.
• Tuesday:
  • Found the Electro Magnetism expert Paolo Salvagione at Pier 9
  • Regained hope.
  • Edited Assembly design to meet new magnet specs.
    
    
    
  • Shop Training.
  • Design a Coke Bottle in Fusion 360.
• Wednesday:
  • CNC Training (Part 1)
  • Electronics Training
• Thursday:
  • Attended Carl Bass Talk at Autodesk Forge DevCon.
  • Assembled a prosthetic hand as part of Autodesk Foundation volunteer efforts.
  • Garlic Masher Cleaner initial brainstorming/testing.
    
    
    
  • Fortus shop training.
  • Editing Lamp on Fusion 360
  • Saw that the Prototype was pretty successful.
• Friday:
  • CNC Training (Part 2)
  • 3D Printed Garlic Masher, first prototype.
    
    
    
  • Solidified magnetic levitation techniques for the lamp.

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Thanks, Ali, Connor, and Eni.

Pressing issues are alive in the lab.