Oceaneering

After moving to the East Coast for family reasons, I was excited to expand my horizons by working in an entirely different industry. The entertainment industry stresses safety and aestetics more strongly than the solar industry, and is more heavily regulated. Designing something that provides joy and fascination from people of all ages is not an easy task, and it requires more engineering than I ever imagined. Every part that goes into an amusement park ride must be concieved, analyzed, manufactured, and tested to ensure safety and reliability.

Surprisingly, my experience with solar inverters, trackers, and cars proved allowed me to make unique contributions to a new, confidential project that I worked on. My experience in Product Development at Solfocus was invaluable, as I understood how to engineer a solution that meets all the requirements and needs of the customer. My experience with solar inverters allows me to work closely with the Electrical Engineers, understanding their relay systems and communication networks. My experience with actuators and motors both at Solfocus and as a member of the Stanford Solar Car Project was also quite helpful, as I was able to perform dynamic and static simulations to determine the proper motors and actuators for our application.

Oceaneering's underwater experience (ROV's and Navy Projects) gives them strong standards and methodologies for designing welded steel structures which are able to resist fatigue and other failure modes. I learned more about engineering fatigue critical parts, as every vehicle we design must go through the same motions for the entire operational life of a ride. Using AISC, ASME, ANSI, and API standards, I learned the proper methodology for designing and analyzing fatigue critical welded parts.