I'm in my second year of Mechanical Engineering (Co-op) at the University of Victoria. I want to work where a part goes from a model on screen to something I can hold, test and improve, and I'm most interested in UAVs, aerospace and marine systems.
On UVic AERO's mechanical team I'm designing mechanical components for this season's competition aircraft. I have used AutoCAD since high school, I work in SolidWorks and Fusion 360, and I'm working toward the CSWA. This term I'm learning drafting standards and GD&T.
Outside school I spend as much time as I can outdoors. I'm also into aviation, motorsports, tennis, hiking and photography.
How I work
- I test until I know where it fails. On SmartSpace I led the testing on a mock doorway. 56 of 60 passages were counted correctly, and for the misses I traced the two failure modes and documented how the backup sensor covers them. Building a prototype, finding where it fails and explaining why is the part I enjoy most.
- I can run my own work. For my first co-op term I worked as an independent contractor. I wrote the proposal and scope, delivered a fixed-price system in milestones the owner signed off one at a time, tracked my hours every week and sent the owner a short written update each week.
- I write things down so someone else can follow them. I wrote my design team's feasibility report, graded 95%, and the handoff documentation for a production system. When a request fell outside the scope, I wrote a short memo laying out the options and the effect on the schedule.
- I do the careful, unglamorous work. I spent over 500 hours rigging and running lighting and sound in a 1,250-seat auditorium, where every fixture and connection was tested before a show. As a head counsellor I led a team of ten and checked and repaired campers' bikes every week.
- Program
- Mechanical Engineering (Co-op), University of Victoria, class of 2029
- Languages
- English (fluent) · French (fluent)
- Interests
- Aviation and aircraft technology, motorsports, tennis, hiking, MTB
- Contact
- james@curtner.ca