Summer of Fabrication 2016 is underway

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.

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.

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• Monday: New employee orientation for interns

• Tuesday:

  • Administrative stuff.
  • Science fair where Applied Research & Innovation team showed off last quarter's projects.
  • Fusion 360 self-learning using online tutorials and YouTube videos.

• Wednesday:

  • Practiced Fusion 360 learning by cadding up sample models

  • Collaboration on Project Design Inception of the LeviLamp™

  • Top Lamp Shade — Connor
    
    
    

    • 3D Printed "Autodesk" in circular block letters
    • Small Magnet in base

  • Bottom Lamp Shade and Electronics — Eni
    
    
    

    • 3D Printed housing for large LED Ring and large magnet
    • 2 total LED rings, microcontroller, bluetooth module, battery pack, charging component

  • Stem and Base — Ali

    • 3D Printed Stem
      
      
      
    • Steel CNC Base to house electronics
      
      
      

• Thursday:

  • Meeting with Technical Assistant to the CEO, Lucas Prokopiak.
    • Advised to write weekly reports
    • Set goals high, and get started as quickly as possible
  • Further Collaboration on Project Design.
  • Ordered $100 of materials, including magnets and electronics

• Friday:

  • Project Design
  • Finished CADding initial designs

• Next Week:

  • Put the separate pieces together in Fusion 360 Assembly
  • Get electronics entirely working
  • Projected Problem Area: Locking down the appropriate magnets for our lamp weight, and adjusting them properly

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Thanks, Ali, Connor, and Eni.

Fusion 360 is alive in the lab.