Mech Engineering Portfolio

Boom! That is what I call constructive criticism. Awesome!

touche


adding

Would having it’s own page suffice?

Adding

I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that. I’m using wordpress.com for the website, and I haven’t had much luck… But live content is my end goal.

I can do that. Is there a point of having too much? Also, handwritten or typed?

I had more graphics, but when I got a critique from my professor he said just lose the graphics. Since I’m getting hired to do graphical things they are just distracting and take away from the actual content.

Not anymore! :wink:

It is definitely my weakest project despite using the awesome conductive plastic material. It isn’t fully developed and still a work in progress. Should it even be included at all?

Good point. Ill get that fixed up.

It is supposed to be an average weight for a rider. I should make that more clear for my online portfolio since I am not there to explain it.

The idea with the bikes was that is one continuous project (although it is presented as 3 separate things). So I start off analyzing the frame for stress, build a frame according to the results, then build a light for safety. Did you get that idea when you looked at it?

Fixing.

I believe the negative angles you are talking about are just the stem flipped over (eg. a stem can have an angle of 4° or -4°). Once again I think this comes down to me showing the things I would typically be talking about were I to present the portfolio in person.

That was the whole bamboo bike project… lol, guess I did show enough of the dirty process. Only problem now is that I don’t have pictures of the build to put in the portfolio…[/list][/quote]

Thank you so much for the comments! They are exactly what I am looking for.

The highlight for me was the way in which you showed the differences in lumens. It shows that you now have a sense of what the numbers mean, and are able to spec based on that sense, all within one image. Strive for that in the rest of your content.

Some ways in which I’ve had success showing calculations/code:


I like step-by-step/list format you used for the calculations. I think I’ll use that for my calculations as well.

I think this comment illustrates quite a common misconception among those new to graphic design.

I presume that the “graphics” you refer to were swooshes or blocks of colours or something of that kind right? It’s very common in student portfolios, but graphic design is a lot more than that. Let’s take typography as an example. I’m paraphrasing, but Beatrice Warde more or less said that “Fonts are clothes that words wear”. Written text is never naked - whenever you see words you will get an impression of whether the message will be serious (helvetica), silly (Giddyup), amateurish (Comic Sans) or something else. You might not notice it most of the time, such as when picking up a book or a magazine, but if it looks good and is easy to read then it has been considered. There is of course a lot more than choice of font to making text look good, including kerning, leading, breaks and so on, but I think you get the idea.

The point I’m trying to make, is that as long as you have a single element on a page, things like size, location and contrast matters and will make the page read differently. As soon as you add more elements you also need to consider how they read in relation to each other. For example - if you have images that don’t line up, it comes across a bit sloppy in most cases. To me, that’s graphic design.

good luck and have fun,
nik

[edit]
Please don’t misunderstand me - swooshes and blocks of colour are great. They can do stuff like guide the eye, show hierarchy, and create coherence, mood and style. However, often you see them used in excess and without real purpose, in which case they tend to distract rather than help.

That’s pretty much what my professor was saying. Ditch the color and swooshes and such.

I really like the analogy of fonts to clothes, never thought of it like that.

Right now I am doing my best to make sure it is all lined up and neat. But if you see something I missed, please let me know.

My suggestion was not very clear at all (sorry about that!) – I was suggesting to clean up the presentation. The graphic design is not relevant (for an engineering portfolio) beyond being clean and not being a distraction. What I was trying to get at was to clean up the rough points, like the sections that used the paintbrush tool. They are not online anymore (part of the bamboo frame project, I think), but things that were marked up like this:

Weird. I don’t remember ever upload a picture with paint brush marks… Or was that something you did to point out details that need improvement?

Strange. I recall an image or two that had sections circled with the red paint tool. I thought it highlighting the sections of the bamboo frame that were enforced with CF.

There is also a chance that I have a brain tumor.

Oooohhh. I know what you’r talking about. It’s in the section talking about how that CF joints were wrapped to ensure they had structural integrity.

I still want to include that section, but I’ll get it cleaned up.

Here’s a nicer way than circling to highlight areas of an image. I saw one of the senior ID guys on the board use it a while ago and I’ve started as well.

Great artists steal :wink:

I’ve used that technique as well in my design classes. But the point of the section is to show the actual pattern I used to wrap the joints, not necessarily highlight the joints themselves, if that makes any sense…

Kind of like a knot diagram?

Yes, exactly.

Ok, I got everything updated other than building the bike up (waiting on some parts).

Any other comments?

I am working on adding a video to the end of the stylus project to show it actually writing/drawing.

Hey Greg,

A few comments:

  • In your forces diagram in the bike frame analysis, you’re mixing Newtons and kilograms. Pick one (preferably Newtons).
  • In the same diagram, it looks like you’re applying a moment to the frame as part of your analysis? Assuming a perfect bearing, there shouldn’t be a moment applied, even with a terrible bearing, it shouldn’t take the full load. The number you calculated would be the moment in the crank. Maybe even put in your reaction forces in a different colour to make it completely clear what’s going on, and maybe easier in your mind to make sure everything balances.
  • There’s a broken link for the bamboo bike frame.
  • I like the layout of your magnetic strength calculations, but I would type them up.
  • Same with the resistance calculations.
  • Wallet link is broken as well.
  • I would also start to figure out a brand for yourself right now. That way, as more projects come up, you can use it, and it’ll make your portfolio seem a lot more unified. I do all of my school presentations, including the group ones, using the same fonts and colours as the ones on my website. It makes it a lot easier to port stuff over when needed.

Great job with the updates! It looks like you took what everyone said and took it up a notch from there. Keep up the good work.

After reading Mirk’s comments I took a closer look at the bike frame calcs and I have the same question – what is the purpose of the moment about the bottom bracket? Related to this, you can easily find cranks ranging from 165mm to 180mm.

  • Also with the FEA:
  • It is necessary to show all the boundary conditions for the analysis – loads AND constraints? A few arrows should suffice to show your supports.
  • Type of analysis – static, dynamic, and the scale of the deformations (small/large, elastic/plastic)
  • What material is being used? The modulus is key here.
  • While not necessarily expected in a portfolio piece, be prepared to discuss all your assumptions, mesh details, convergence of the solver.

Good luck with the job search!

Greg,

Looks like the two broken links are fixed, or it was just a temporary outage. Some comments that might help on them:

  • “When dry, bamboo becomes as rigid as steel” - This doesn’t really make sense. I’m sure you know rigidity=EI, meaning it depends on both on your material properties and geometry. You may have meant it in a more colloquial manner, but I’ve been caught doing that before and it didn’t work out well. Make sure it’s understandable to everyone, but that you’re still using the right terms.
  • This could get a bit complicated, and may be unnecessary, but I would really like to see further proof that the bamboo was strong enough. It wouldn’t be absolutely correct, but maybe to simplify, just use your stress values obtained from the FEA and compare with the yield strength of bamboo to give an approximate safety factor? Or else, prove that EI(steel)=EI(bamboo).
  • The “what’s in my pockets?” pic could use some photoshopping to push that background to pure white.

Good points! I’m should have everything updates by the end of the weekends.

Also, I have an interview this week at a toy manufacturer and I’m looking to brush up on my plastic engineering, particularly molding. Any resources you guys recommend? I would use my manufacturing book, but I never bought it… :blush:

Hey Greg, I’m on the go right now or I’d go grab the links for you, but sprockets posted a bunch of awesome ones over in my portfolio thread.