Becoming a design engineer

Happynappy

Hi, I'm a mechanical engineer with all my experience coming in manufacturing, nothing of note relating to design work.

What would be the best way to get into design? I'm thinking that a good place to start would be through getting some expertise in solidworks. Can anyone recommend any courses for this or would you recomend purchasing the software and learning it myself? Is this a good way to getting started?

Offy

Hi Happynappy, Im a mechanical design engineer. Most of my day is spend on Solidworks but its only a tool. The biggest part of my job is testing and material selection. If you want to get into design you have to know what materials do what. Knowing how they are processed is also critical. Its very easy to design something but if it cant be manufactured then its useless.
If you can affort the software then buy it. Spend as much time as you can using it. Learn to animate and simulate. Learn how to detail, small things like screw threads on a bolt make a big difference when giving a presentation.
Solidworks comes with tutorials that are very useful and give a solid foundation to build on. Use them.

Happynappy

Some sound advice there, thanks Offy. I might just go ahead and look at purchasing some software so, seems like it might be a worthwhile investment.

Turbulent Bill

Happynappy wrote: »

Hi, I'm a mechanical engineer with all my experience coming in manufacturing, nothing of note relating to design work.

What would be the best way to get into design? I'm thinking that a good place to start would be through getting some expertise in solidworks. Can anyone recommend any courses for this or would you recomend purchasing the software and learning it myself? Is this a good way to getting started?

Is there any particular area of design you're interested in? Might help to focus the advice a bit better.

Like Offy I'm a mechanical design engineer, and in my opinion the best way to get into design is to show an aptitude for problem solving, mixed with broad knowledge of the problem area - you may already have both from your manufacturing experience. Identify a problem in your field (even a small one), use your knowledge and creativity to form a solution, present this and get it accepted and implemented. This might sound a bit wishy-washy, but it's the essence of mechanical design.

The software is not critical - it never comes up with new ideas or understands the scope of the problem. The easiest analogy I can give is to a journalist - once they've thought of an interview, had the idea accepted, recorded the interview and sketched out the piece, it's irrelevant which word processing package they use to do the final version. SolidWorks is a useful tool, but design goes a lot further than just creating nice models.

Happynappy

Turbulent Bill wrote: »

Is there any particular area of design you're interested in? Might help to focus the advice a bit better.

Like Offy I'm a mechanical design engineer, and in my opinion the best way to get into design is to show an aptitude for problem solving, mixed with broad knowledge of the problem area - you may already have both from your manufacturing experience. Identify a problem in your field (even a small one), use your knowledge and creativity to form a solution, present this and get it accepted and implemented. This might sound a bit wishy-washy, but it's the essence of mechanical design.

The software is not critical - it never comes up with new ideas or understands the scope of the problem. The easiest analogy I can give is to a journalist - once they've thought of an interview, had the idea accepted, recorded the interview and sketched out the piece, it's irrelevant which word processing package they use to do the final version. SolidWorks is a useful tool, but design goes a lot further than just creating nice models.

I don't really have a preference for any particular area of design, although I'm thinking of in the area of mechanical devices. You're right in that I may already have some experience from my past role and I may be able to push this at a job application/ interview, thanks.

pprendeville

Solid Solutions provided training. Just google them. expensive though. Best off to get a student version of the softaware and work on it.

As the guys said, you should have experience from your current position. Maybe you worked on conveyors or something mechanical. Get some practice on SolidWorks and start designing some simple things and try to keep them related to a problem you solved. Will make it more satisfactory. Maybe if you get an interview then you can bring your concepts to show the hiring manager. They'd be well impressed.

But as the guys said, it's knowing that your design will work that's the most important thing. All good and well having a lovely design on the computer screen but if holes are misaligned or you have interference between two parts and they've already been made and the customer is on your back you might be starting to wish you stayed in manufacturing.

victorpaul1

Yeah Solid Work just help as basics in designing but there are so many other software that are helpful to your query i.e Cad, Cam, Drafting and nx. My opinion is that just try to get a student version of the softaware and work on it.