TRUDIE

About Me

When I entered university, I had a limited view on engineering and what it entailed. I believed that engineering was based on designing effective and efficient designs that could be applicable to many individuals, and while this is still the case, my values and motivations for engineering design have certainly evolved and matured through experiential learning in design projects throughout my first year of university. First off, I believe that engineering design should provide effective solutions that both accomplish and complement the user’s needs and interests, and that are elegant in that they do not overcomplicate the situation. In other words, I feel that the core of engineering design should be focused on providing a solution that fulfills its intended purpose. Certainly, part of my motivation towards engineering design is simply based on personal interest in design, particularly in developing new ideas and alternatives in addition to verifying that current renderings make sense. However, beyond actual design work, I have learned to appreciate the value of having a good team dynamic and mutual understanding within such teams. Discussing and compromising to reach agreement on team values and goals helps to create a team vision and allows us to work together by complementing one another. Moreover, I value the representation of ideas through sketches, physical prototypes, and detailed descriptions as a method of generating and communicating information, especially among team members. These were common themes that naturally rose from engaging in team work throughout my first-year design courses.
While I have made many significant improvements in being able to effectively communicate my design ideas and engage in more rigor in developing designs by employing various tools throughout the design process, I became more aware of areas of weakness as well as those of strength. One such strength would be my ability to eliminate alternatives to reach the optimal option through the use of tools such as rating matrices; I find the consideration multiples aspects and requirements particularly interesting when striving for the optimal concept. However, I realize also that although I have made improvements already, my ability to effectively and concisely communicate my ideas through both writing and speech is one of my weaknesses. I have thus made efforts to make greater contributions to group discussions and writing tasks as well as volunteer to speak more during group presentations.
To this end, this portfolio is an ongoing display of my previous design work that allows me to reflect on areas of growth and development. Here, you will find my previous projects, specific design work and tools that I use, a statement of my engineering philosophy, as well as references.