From 2D to Functional: The Basics of Mechanical Engineering

For the past eight weeks, Kiely, a senior from Bay View Academy here in RI has been working side-by-side with a number of our engineering team members to more fully understand engineering as a discipline and future path of study.

Her favorite experience here was generating and ‘printing’ a 3D vise model using Solidworks and our on-site FDM machines. “They let me keep the vise model once I finished, and it came out really nice,” Kiely shares. According to one mentor, engineer Rick Piatt, “it came out perfectly, with all the components fitting together as they should.”

Similarly we find that such fully functional prototypes “delight” our internal team members including our engineers, HF teams, as well as our external stakeholders; our clients. Prototypes such as the vise Kiely created enables isolation of systems and features into manageable sizes, and on a macro scale can save time, money and eliminate risk in the product development process.

Has this time at Ximedica drastically changed Kiely’s future plans? According to her, the goal is still the same, but her experience has fostered increased confidence in becoming an engineer. Now it’s just up to her to decide which path to follow – although Mechanical seems to be the pursuit that sparks her interest most.

Best of luck in all your endeavors, Kiely!

Learn more about Mechanical and Design Assurance engineering at Ximedica.