This month’s winner of the Model of the Month is as much about an amazing model as it is about how a team of young inventors came together to collaborate on the design.  Check out how these three have learned the ropes of CAD and the different groups involved in getting them together.  Oh, and congratulations to Daniele, Carlos and Casey!

Daniele’s story:

“My name is Daniele Grandi, I’m from a small town in Italy, and I’m currently finishing up my Mechanical Engineering degree at Berkeley. I’ve been involved with 3D modeling for the past 5 years, and while most of my designs have been very mechanically oriented, I hope that after graduation I will find a position at a company that allows me to move towards product development and human centered design.”

Carlos story:

“My name is Carlos Oyuela-Mora. I am currently studying to become a Mechanical Engineer. My biggest enjoyment in life has been traveling and immersing myself in world cultures. I speak English, Spanish, and French. I am currently focusing on school while progressing on two projects: 3D Modeling Club (3DMC) and Engineering without Borders (EWB).

I work with 3DMC to spread 3d printing throughout the campus community and to develop a 3d modeling service to students so they can have a taste of the future. EWB has given me the opportunity to travel to other countries in order to help third world communities and whatever issues they may have.”

Casey’s story:

“I’m Casey Rogers, and grew up in a rural town of 600 called Potter Valley. I was interested in computers from a young age, but opportunities in a rural town are few and far between. In order to satiate my interest in computers and creativity I’ve self-taught myself a number of programs and skills, from game design with Valve’s Hammer Editor to modeling meshes with 3DS Max. In the end I settled on CAD after discovering and learning Inventor by being a Teaching Assistant for a student run introductory course on the program. I’ve found myself enjoying CAD more than any of my other creative computer endeavors because, unlike one would expect from a design paradigm for engineers, CAD’s powerful but well abstracted toolset makes complex and detailed design extremely accessible.

I’ve discovered that, as an Economics and Computer Science double major and as a TA for an introductory CAD course, some of the most interesting design work is done by those with interesting backgrounds outside of engineering. One of the great things about Fusion 360 is that it takes CAD, a skill typically only for engineers, and makes it accessible to people with different academic backgrounds and enables them to bring their talents to design in unique ways. In the future I plan to leverage my academic background and my personal drive and skill for design in a career in the consumer electronics industry.”

Forming the team (from Daniele’s view):

“I met Carlos and Casey a couple of years ago at school. I was teaching a workshop on Inventor, and they were among the students that showed up that night. I had started a 3D modeling club, aptly named 3DMC, about a semester before that, and I was super excited when they decided to join me in managing the club, as it had turned out to be quite hard to get Berkeley students to stop studying and do some extra-curricular activities. With their help 3DMC evolved, and we now focus on teaching a semester-long class on Fusion 360 to other students, we participate in CAD competitions whenever possible, but most importantly, we have a lot fun with 3D printers.

When I was tasked with modeling the scale model of the Olsryd 9 cylinder radial engine, I decided that I would give those two rookies a challenge, since they will take over the club once I graduate in May. The three of us spent around a full work week each working on the engine.  For this project we pushed Fusion to its limit, and we are very pleased with the result.  For the different parts of the engine we took advantage of both the sculpting and modeling environment of Fusion.  

The collaborating environment of Fusion 360 was the perfect medium for us to work in. While I was in Italy over winter break, Casey was working from LA, and Carlos was in the Bay Area. It allowed us to keep track of everyone’s progress without too many emails.

Working with Fusion360 on such a large scale model was no easy task. We were able to quickly build the individual parts, but when the assemblies contained more parts and more joints, performance became an issue. We experimented with disabling the timeline and just work with direct modeling, but the advantages of staying in history based modeling outweighed the performance gains.”