I had the opportunity at tool., inc. to mentor a talented student on his senior project as part of a collaboration effort with the Marblehead High School. Cole was tasked with designing, modeling, and prototyping a solution to problem in an area of interest to him. It was an great experience to coach him through a portion of our process and teach him some foundational skills. This project helped him understand how a product idea can be brought to life with iterative thinking and CAD modeling. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of the project had to be coordinated virtually; nonetheless, Cole excelled at collaborating with us through Slack channels and Zoom meetings and was able to generate some exceptional work. I enjoyed helping him model, render, and print his design.
Cole came up with the idea of developing a trekking stick handle that could be universally installed on any wooden hiking stick. I helped him explore various solutions for attaching the handle before arriving at a unique double collet system that tightens around the stick while allowing for variability in diameters. Its a simple thread to tighten user experience. We added a wrist strap and a built-in compass for navigation on the trail. He was stoked to see the idea come to life and this effort built up his excitement for pursuing design and engineering as a career. Congrats Cole!
Mentoring Project completed in 2020