As today, November 10th, 2015, I’m starting this blog to archive and tell you all about my works, projects, ambitions, achievements etc as a Mechanical Engineering student, but specially about Design Engineering, my major and my passion.

A little bit about me.

In 2012 i entered the Engineering School at Pontificia Universidad Católica, and was absolutely delighted with the excellency of the place. Everybody was so smart, I was proud to be there.

In 2013 i took a decision that’ll change my life forever: I decided to change curriculum from a knowledge based curriculum, to a proficiency based one with one thing in mind, the Major in Engineering, Design and Innovation. In the major I met Constanza Miranda, Catalina Cortázar and Gabriela García, the three powerpuff girls, the major IDI teachers.

My first course at the major was Visual Thinking, in which I learned about Big Data, Visualizations, data mining, and finally: Arduino Computing. I absolutely loved the course, so much that after a few semesters I became the TA. My final project in the course was a Racing Game based on the oil prices of Chile, divided by regions. The idea of the game was that the players had to choose which region to fill the tank with the same money, and depending on the price the tank will fill more or less. Then they’ll race, and when the gas was spent the cars will stop, and the player that chose the more expensive region will lose the race.

That semester I also took a Design School course called “Models and Prototypes” and found my passion for product design. In the course I learnt about different ways of prototyping, from paper to resin, wire, clay and plastics. I developed lots of small projects, maybe I’ll upload a photo later.

The next semester I took Anthro-Design, a project base course focused on teaching a particular design methodology that will follow me through all my future projects. I learnt about “personas (Kolko)”, “Journey Maps”, “Customer Journey” and a lot other tools that helped me develop a focused ethnographic project for the Santiago Metropolitan Park. Here’s the link to the blog: http://espaciosmet.weebly.com/

The Design School I took that semester was Ergonomics, there I learnt about the different aspects of the discipline, also I worked on a project for a disabled person, that consisted on adapting the house to the special needs of the user.

Last semester I took one of the main courses of the Major: DILAB. DILAB was a course that took the learnings from Anthro-Design and applied them to a full product development project. My project was to design an antiseismic wine fermentation tank rest. The results were great, we developed a tank foot considering a user centered design, and the user needs. You can check out more info about the project in the blog: https://sismotinto.wordpress.com/

The last course from the Design School I’ve taken so far was “Cad/CAM Design Manufacture”. In the course I learnt via projects about Laser Cutting, 3D printing, and CNC Cutting, and i worked creating some great projects like a CNC cut bike, a 3D printed prosthesis, and a lot more. I’ll probably upload photos later.

Right now I’m working as a TA for Visual Thinking and Engineering Challenges, the main starting course for freshmen year. I’m also working as an Associate Instructor for the Major, that meaning I’m in charge of the 3D Printers, the major Dorkshops, and to act as a TA for the major students. I love what i do, and I plan to continue doing it for a while. I’ve applied to the university’s exchange program, and I hope to study Product Design at Lund University, in Sweden.

That’s it for today, I’ll keep you updated!