Senior Design: Stanley Black and Decker Tool

The culmination of the mechanical engineering undergraduate curriculum at Johns Hopkins is a company-sponsored year long senior design project. Stanley Black & Decker tasked my team with inventing a novel tool to cut MC cable. The project and intellectual property is protected by NDA.
Teams meet with sponsors and instructors bi-weekly to update and receive design feedback in the form of a 30-minute presentation.

August 2022 - May 2023

Johns Hopkins University

Project management, rapid prototyping, 3D printing, water jetting, manual machining, finite element analysis, ASME hand tool testing, research and development, product design, slide show presentation, technical report writing, budget management, silicone molds, design for manufacture

Research, design, build, test, and validate a novel tool to cut MC cable. SBD gave us full reign of the project to set and meet our own goals of making a product that is lighter, more ergonomic, and convenient to use than existing solutions.

The SBD-MC23 team consisted of D. Comer, G. Mackay, A. Miller, and myself. I served as the team's project manager, responsible for tracking and assigning our deliverables and goals. I also coordinated work schedules for regular team meetings. Aside from management work, I was responsible for all 3D printed components, machining components, water jetting handles, pouring silicone, and providing finishing touches to make a cohesive product. I coordinated focus group testing with professional electricians to validate our device. I designed our design day poster.

Throughout the design cycle, we iterated through eleven prototypes, arriving an electrician and sponsor approved, fully-functional device. When asked, 90% of electricians polled would prefer to use our tool over existing solutions. We presented our work at the Mechanical Engineering Spring Design Day and were awarded "Best Overall Team" by ASME Baltimore judges for the completeness of the design cycle which yielded a viable proof of concept device.

This project challenged our team to go through the design cycle with no external parameters set by SBD. To that end, we researched existing solutions, polled electricians, iterated through many prototypes, tested our device internally and with electricians, and validated its functionality. Since this was self directed, we gained experience performing critical analysis of existing mechanical designs, dissecting them from ergonomic, functional, end user, and manufacturing perspectives. I feel that I came into my own as a project manager, keep the team on track of our goals and hitting our targets. I also gained valuable experience collaborating with peer engineers, presenting design updated to the client (SBD) and implemented design feedback from various sources, especially end case users. I became a better mechanical designer, collaborator, and full-cycle engineer.