Project Overview
Project Description
This project aimed at developing an improved workflow and setting up best practices for the Nth Cycle Mechanical Design team. The project will involve studying current processes and offering the subject matter expertise of Fusion 360 to accelerate and enhance the rapid prototyping capabilities. Fellows would start with high-level training on Nth Cycle technology, then dive into the current workflows for using Fusion 360 software. After understanding how the team functions, the fellow would help develop improved workflows, template models, file organization, and other best practices for the internal team to follow. Along with the design, CAM improvements are also desired, such as toolpath templates and standard processes that save time on programming setup and fabrication. The ultimate goal of this project is to reduce the time it takes to conceptualize, design, fabricate, and test prototypes. The final deliverables may include training documentation for Fusion 360 best practices to onboard new members and template CAD models.
Impact
Nth Cycle is developing technology to recycle critical metals for battery production to make the electric vehicle & energy storage supply chain more sustainable. Nth Cycle’s technology will be modular and co-located on a customer site, thus reducing the cost and energy required to ship hazardous material around the world. Reducing the cycle time for design and testing will help accelerate the path to a sustainable supply chain for battery production and minimize waste throughout the process. The main goal is the percentage reduction in design-fabricate-test cycle time, but other improvements could include RFT (right first time) on in-housed machined parts to minimize mistakes or other quality metrics.
Eligibility Criteria
Skills / Experience:
- Required:
- CAD Modeling
- Manufacturing/Design for Manufacturing
- Desired:
- Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM)
- Prototyping / Fast Prototyping
Software Needs:
- Fusion 360
Discipline:
- Mechanical engineering
Preferred Fellow Local Experience (All projects can be completed remotely):
- N/A
Preferred Timezone (when the Fellow should be available for meetings):
- Compatibility with UTC-05:00, Eastern Standard Time
