Being an Engineer

S2E19 Prioritizing time for family, personal projects, & CAD/design strategies | James Drachenberg

April 24, 2021 James Drachenberg Season 2 Episode 19
Being an Engineer
S2E19 Prioritizing time for family, personal projects, & CAD/design strategies | James Drachenberg
Show Notes Transcript

I first found James on his personal website and immediately realized this is an engineer who truly loves design. Why else would one spend the countless hours of personal time required to design one’s own, teenage mutant ninja turtle action figures, GameBoy cartridge cases, and, of course, the infamous Robo kitty. A few years ago I invited James to lunch and we’ve kept in touch ever since. James shares some great tips for design, and how to get noticed in this episode of the BAE podcast.

 

The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us.  

About Being An Engineer

The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.

The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us

Aaron Moncur:

Hello, dear listener, we are looking to add a new member to our engineering team again. Ideally, we're looking for a Senior Level mechanical design engineer in the Phoenix area who has experienced designing custom automated machines, equipment and test fixtures. Also, having working experience with controls and system integration would be a big plus. If you'd like to apply or suggest someone, please email us at info at teampipeline.us.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah, I just love creating things. I don't know. It's just it's like what's it's what gives me life in the morning. It's just like, Oh, I get to make something this is exciting.

Aaron Moncur:

Hello, and welcome to another exciting episode of The Being an Engineer Podcast. Today we are speaking with James Drachenberg, who aside from having one of the coolest last names ever has done everything from medical devices to consumer products to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures. I've been a fan of James's for many years now following his personal projects on his blog, which we'll link to in the show notes. And I'm super excited to have him on the show. So with that, James, thank you so much for spending some time with us today.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. Aaron. I'm really excited to be here.

Aaron Moncur:

All right, tell us a little bit about what made you decide to be an engineer?

James Drachenberg:

Um, that's a great question. So when I was very young, I actually wanted to be a veterinarian, because I loved animals. I still love animals. But I that was what I wanted my goal to be. And then freshman biology came in high school and I was like, dissections? No, that's not how to infer me. I'm not it. And so I reflected in my freshmen ability to do that, which is very poor for a high schooler.

Aaron Moncur:

But I was thinking that you were thinking about it back in a freshman in high school. I wasn't.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah, I mean, I've always I've always been forward thinking of what are what's my end goal? And what are the means to get to that end goal? I don't know. It's just a it's a weird thing that I thought was normal. But a lot of people are like, I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was like, 30. And like, wow, that's yeah, wild.

Aaron Moncur:

I think you have a superhuman power without even realizing it. That's fantastic.

James Drachenberg:

So so I thought about what were the things that I enjoyed, and like, I had always loved Lego too. So I always build with Lego. Anytime that I was doing homework, I'd be thinking about Lego instead. And so was having conversations with like my parents. And I was like, I don't think I could be a vet. This. This is not for me anymore. And my parents were like, you really like to build things with Lego and was like, Yes, I do. I do like to build things with Lego. You're right. And so they encouraged me to build Lego. Yeah. So they encouraged me like, what what would you need to do to do that full time to like, make things or to work for Lego. And that was that was like, my idea of my end goal at that time. And so talking to like, counselors, I think there were like some presentations and figured out that mechanical engineering was it. And moving through high school, like learning physics and all this, like, I wasn't really into chemistry, physics was pretty cool. And was like, that seems like a step in the right direction. Decided 100% engineering. Engineering college was a very different experience than I thought it would be. Oh, yeah. Um, there was it was a lot of math, it was a lot of theory. A lot of like, the statics, kinematics, and those things were very interesting. But the thing that really grabbed my attention was my 2D drafting class, first of all, which I thought was fascinating. And then we got into 3D modeling. And like, it blew my mind. And like, and that's what I fell in love with. So I like I automatically fell in love with 3d modeling. I think we were using PTC at the time, or pro engineer. And I've never touched that software system since but have have done a lot with SolidWorks. And in my personal in my personal hobby, I was doing a lot with fusion 360 and I'm trying to transition over to free CAD.

Aaron Moncur:

This is all sounding very, very familiar. I also loved to play with Legos. When I was a kid, I had no idea about biology. I never wanted to be a vet or anything like that. But I got into into the curriculum in college and I had a 2D drafting class actually, that was in high school, but I loved this 2D drafting class. It was so fun. I could I could, it was only an hour long the class but I could have sat there all day and just say all these percent here use and isometric views and all I loved it. And then I got into the call the engineering curriculum in college and I had a CAD class and it like you It blew my mind. I was like, Oh, this is so cool. I remember we had this big project to model a car we could pick the number car we wanted. We pick the the Ferrari, Modena, and I spent like every weekend in the CAD computer lab just modeling this thing and like doing renderings, even though renderings were pretty crappy back then.

James Drachenberg:

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Aaron Moncur:

And I was on PT. I was on yeah, pro engineer at the time. And that's where I started and then used it very little after I graduated. So this is this is all sounding very, very familiar. Crazy.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah. Lego's the gateway drug.

Aaron Moncur:

The gateway drug? Yeah.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah.

Aaron Moncur:

I, it's been probably a year and a half or two years since I did a whole lot of design work. I've been removed from the day to day engineering, and been focusing more on sales and business development, which has been awesome. And I've really enjoyed it. It's been a huge challenge. And I've learned a lot. So it's been great. No complaints at all. But I haven't had a chance to do a whole lot of design until this past week. And we just got really, really busy and so busy that that I have stepped back into a designer role. Things are bad when when I'm doing Yeah. And it was it's been so fun. I forgot how much fun this is just getting into the CAD and designing things. And it's, it's, it's been a blast. Anyway, this interview is about you and not about me. So let's get back to James Drachenberg. Let's let's start there, Drachenberg, Okay, tell us what does your last name mean?

James Drachenberg:

So Drachenberg is German for dragon mountain, which I always thought was the coolest thing. And I have been challenged on that multiple times throughout my life because people think it's too cool. So I have looked into it, it does mean dragon mountain. And so that that is the foundation for the name of my website. It's Dragon Mountain Design. I felt like Drachenberg Design was a little bit a little bit too obscure. Yeah, but Dragon Mountain Design, there's a flow to it. It's a logo that my my good friend Nate made. Yeah.

Aaron Moncur:

And what do you do on Dragon Mountain Design, the website?

Unknown:

So that website is for personal projects that I do in my free time, which with having small children is a lot less than it used to be. I started it shortly before my daughter was born, and had a lot more free time because she slept all the time. And then had a son A few years later. And that free time is just evaporated over time. And so like there'll be moments when I get like really excited about designing or doing anything, really, and I'll be up like really like far too late than I should be. And I'll be designing things and then like, I won't be able to touch it for a week or something. So it has progressed, as my life has progressed. I used to post like every other week, which was that was a lot.

Aaron Moncur:

Because some of the projects you do, they're like they're in depth. They're not just yeah, little couple hour things.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah, so the the, the biggest project that I have done, and the one I'm probably most proud of, is RoboKitty. And it's this big, robotic dinosaur. And you can you can see it on Dragon Mountain Design. You can go download those files if you want to. They're free. And I I if I recall, that was a project that I did over what what I get myself a Christmas break every year. I tried to schedule on my PTO around that time. And so that was like my Christmas break project. And I was up so late every night like working on that. And I was so excited. At the end of it, I was so proud of this design, and it's it got really popular on line for a little while. And every once in a while I'll hear like little blurbs from people like oh, we found your model. It's so great. Yeah, but my wife at the end of that was like, that was a lot of time. That was a lot of timem James and...

Aaron Moncur:

I need some robo balance here.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Let's get some robo balance up in here. So she she helped me reel it back a little bit. And I'm doing that. Yeah, I'm doing some smaller scale things. Now. I would love to another

Aaron Moncur:

Why did you start the website? Tell me a little bit about that.

James Drachenberg:

Oh boy. Um It was actually my wife's idea as well.

Aaron Moncur:

It's all coming full circle.

Unknown:

Yeah, she's she's fantastic wife. Very motivational, very sound advice. But I, I, it was, it was the winter before my daughter was born. And I had been scouted by a large tech company, that I won't I won't get into the name of it right now. But they, they interviewed me, I had gone through a couple of interviews, and they wanted me to come out. And I, after having the interviews, I decided that, hey, the work life balance is not where I want to be. And I was really excited that they wanted me and my wife was like, just think of who would contact you, if you had this awesome website to like, showcase all your work. I was like, hey, that's a pretty good idea. So I started working on it and playing around with it. And yeah, I really, really have enjoyed, really enjoyed it.

Aaron Moncur:

And hence RoboKitty was born. Okay.

James Drachenberg:

Hence, robot kitty was born.

Aaron Moncur:

Excellent. I love it. So clearly, all these projects take a lot of time. Do you have like, dedicated time to work on this stuff, or at this point is it just whenever you find a minute or two.

James Drachenberg:

It's whatever I find a minute or two. And then with with the pandemic, and COVID and everything, I'm home a lot more, but I'm also a lot more involved with the kids. And so again, my wife has been very good about like, scheduling time and being like, Hey, I'm putting the kids to bed, you go out and go out to your workshop and design if you want to do whatever you want. So that's been really good, too. And I've been able to have a little bit more time to work on projects that way.

Aaron Moncur:

Nice. Tell me about your workshop. What is in your workshop.

James Drachenberg:

Um, in my workshop, it is a I want to say it's like a 10 by 12 tuff shed that we we had installed a few years ago. And I did all the interiors myself. I'm in here right now. I know you can see me the podcast listeners.

Aaron Moncur:

It just looks like an office. Yeah, nice.

James Drachenberg:

So we built it to be an office, there's an AC unit. For the summertime. Right now I have the door to my backyard open and the sun is shining. And it's a beautiful day. I have a 3D printer here. I've got like my laptop, a couple computers books. A collection of Gameboy games that I've been rebuilding over the last year so and different stuff like that. All of my Lego is also out here.

Aaron Moncur:

Now when you say Gameboy games that you're rebuilding, what do you mean by that? rebuilding?

James Drachenberg:

Oh, the collection. I'm rebuilding the collect god. Oh, so I loved Gameboy as a kid. And I had like all these Gameboy games. And then whenever the newest thing would come out, I would do the GameStop trade in, which was a terrible, terrible choice because you get like 10 bucks for for your like your whole collection you get like 10. But I would always like I would always enjoy that. So pick

Aaron Moncur:

Like a pawn shop for kids.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah so I was actually at Bookmans, which is a book reseller in the Phoenix area. I was at the one in Flagstaff a couple years ago, and there's a gameboy color just sitting there. And I was like, oh, man, that that's got some good memories. And so my wife was like, you should get it then. And so I got it. I was like, Oh my gosh, this is great. And I've been having a really good time, like introducing my kids to some of my old favorites. And have actually found that there's like a huge community of people who are like creating their own Gameboy games right now. Really. And so I've actually started doing that with my nephews.

Aaron Moncur:

Nice. Yeah. Well, let's see. Um, so. So, Dragon Mountain Design. You've been doing this for a little bit over six years now. Why do you think it has been and continues to be important for you? Does it just scratch an itch that you don't get access to it at work?

James Drachenberg:

A little bit. Yeah, I think in some previous positions, doing consumer products, I've always had a passion for toys, but I don't really know if I want to be working in the toy design field. I watched that whole Netflix series the toys that made us and I absolutely loved it but it's a little bit too cutthroat for me. And so so I've it's been this itch that I've been able to scratch him like if I have this wild idea for something, I can just go and do it. Like like the more recent designs that I've done, like the Ninja Turtle action figures that are You mentioned at the top of the podcast. That was something that I've always enjoyed. I love the Ninja Turtles, I can't explain it. And my kids have been starting to get into it because I've had some of my older ninja turtle toys pop up over the years. And so I was like, I want to make action figures, I want to make toys. In my free time. Let me try this. It's like a, it's, it's something that is nostalgic, something that's exciting. Their designs aren't so complex that I would feel weird about it. Like I'm not making people's faces and like having to sell all this stuff. Like, I can be a little bit more abstract with it. And it was it was a lot of fun.

Aaron Moncur:

Yeah, I highly recommend people check out the the Ninja Turtle Project on James's website, it's very cool. You have done quite a bit of 3d printing with all of your personal projects. What what 3D printer do you use?

James Drachenberg:

Um, I started out with a printer bought simple metal, this was years back. That was the first printer that I had gotten, I bought the kit and I built it because I wanted to know everything I could about it. I enjoyed that. But I didn't want to ever do that again. So the second print that I got was a Prusa i3, mark 2s, I think that's what it was with. And that was like their flagship Prusa printer, I bought that one just stock it came, all I had to do is plug it in and turn it on. And it worked beautifully.

Aaron Moncur:

Nice.

James Drachenberg:

But it was also very big. And I tried to make most of my designs small because I'm waiting and printing something for like 24 hours because some of these prints can take a really long time. And some some people design their prints to take a really long time. And that stresses me out. So I tried to design everything in small chunks as much as possible. And so I only have to print a little bit at a time. I can observe it if I need to. I don't have to worry about like leaving it and things getting messed up. That's just a personal preference for me. So now I have a Prusa Mini.

Aaron Moncur:

Okay. And is this your favorite one so far?

James Drachenberg:

I think so, it's the smallest form factor that I've had in a while. And it works really well. It's, it's had a couple of issues. But they've been super easy to fix. The prusa team is super great about putting together documentation and giving advice as to how to adjust things and fix things. So it's got a great community. It's got great support from the company. It's open source, I highly recommend their their stuff.

Aaron Moncur:

Terrific.

James Drachenberg:

Well, one a little bit more on the expensive side. But yeah.

Aaron Moncur:

Well, one of the questions I was going to ask you later on was who are some of your favorite vendors that the people listening to the show might might get some value out of sounds like that's one of them, Prusa.

James Drachenberg:

Prusa, yeah, they're great there, there are a lot of other 3D printing companies that are also really good, I don't have a whole lot of experience with them. But if you're really into 3d printing, and if you're really into the machines themselves, there are a lot of great models that you can get very inexpensively and then tweak and modify and get ready, get get to a level of quality that you prefer. I see that I see it is more of a means to an end. And so I don't really want to do all those things. And appreciate is great for that because their products work really, really well out the box.

Aaron Moncur:

Yeah, I get the sense from you. I've gotten this sense for a long time. I mean, you and I have known each other loosely for several years now. And I've always felt this way that some people, they go to work, and they they they do engineering at work, I get the sense that you are an engineer, you're like the quintessential design engineer. And that's just who you are. It's not who you become at work. That's just who you are. And turns out, work is a good fit, because that's who you are. What are some of the things that you have learned on your personal projects that have been useful or applicable at work?

James Drachenberg:

Oh, man, that's a great question. I've been able to learn a lot about building in like slip fit versus pressfit. And in designing those things in as like standards. And I've been able to apply a lot of like modeling techniques that I've figured out while I've been doing it at home to like, hey, that worked really well or that that made this a lot faster. And so I'd be able to apply similar modeling techniques in SolidWorks. When I design at work, it's it's just like honing a blade. That's that's the best analogy that I can make is that I the work that I do on my website isn't the exact same work that I do professionally. But it's the same skill sets. Yeah, I get to I get to enjoy a pastime while still sharpening my skill sets.

Aaron Moncur:

What do you think is your favorite kind of engineering or design work to do? Like, if you had your pay, you could design your own job? What would that look like?

James Drachenberg:

Um, probably just designing a CAD. I love designing a CAD. I don't

Aaron Moncur:

Yeah.

James Drachenberg:

I don't know what it is, like, I love I love the design work. And I love like playing with what I've created afterwards. Like, I enjoy 3D printing. But like I said, it's it's more of a means to an end for me. And so like the the first and last parts are my favorite.

Aaron Moncur:

And you've done professionally. Consumer Product Design, which is a lot of plastic injection molding, but you've also done more of the industrial side where you're working with gears and machined metal parts and things like that. Does it? Does it even matter to what you're designing? Not really, as long as you get to design in CAD? Not really. Yeah, okay.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah, I just love creating things. I don't know. It's it's just it's like, what's it's what gives me life in the morning. It's just like, Oh, I get to make something this is exciting.

Aaron Moncur:

And there's my sound bite. That's, that's the opening for the podcast. All right. I'll take just a real short break right now and share with everyone that team pipeline.us is where you can learn more about how we help medical device and other product engineering or manufacturing teams develop turnkey equipment, custom fixtures and automated machines to characterize inspect, assemble, manufacturer and perform verification testing on your devices. We are speaking with James Drachenberg today. One of the things I would like to talk to you about is time management because like you said, you have a couple of young children, and you have this like, busy personal project schedule that you have going on. And then of course, you have work and and you're married. So you have husband duties as well. How do you manage your time? Do you have any, any routines or habits or tricks that you found to be useful over the years?

James Drachenberg:

It's ebbed and flowed as as my life has progressed. I try to make time for my family first and foremost, because they're so important to me. And even even as I create things, I'm thinking about my kids, or like my wife, like a lot of the things that I do aren't just toys, like I've done some functional work, just because my wife is like, hey, I need this thing. And I'm like, you got it. So I love spending time with them. So that's more of the priority. And obviously work work is also a like career work is a huge priority. So I do try to get more of that balance before I do any personal work. And like I said earlier, for a very long time, it was more of I would do this when any everything else was finished and wrapped up the kids were in bed. My wife may have been busy at the time, or she may be hanging out just decompressing and I'll be like, Alright, great. I'm gonna have fun, I'm gonna design. And so that's more how time management has gone. For my personal projects. It's mostly been what time is available. Okay. And for a while I was giving myself like a month deadline. I was like, I want to have something out every month. And for a while that was okay. But it wasn't ultimately sustainable because of the kids getting older and staying up later. And, and me just being tired because I'm older.

Aaron Moncur:

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah, there have been nights where I like

fall asleep at 8:

30. And like, what happened?

Aaron Moncur:

Yeah, like, I don't know why I'm here today. She said, it was like, I don't know, eight, eight o'clock at night or something. And she says, All I want to do is take some advil and go to sleep. And I said to her that sounds so nice. It's so embarrassing, right? Like, we're just getting old.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah.

Aaron Moncur:

What was I gonna ask you now? Are we talking about time management? Oh, yeah. So you've worked in in variety of industries, right consumer products, medical devices. What have been some of the pros and cons of working in these different industries?

James Drachenberg:

Well, at my my position that I was working in consumer products. When I started there, it was like a smaller team in a larger company. And so things worked very very smoothly, because there are only a few of us that were working on one thing at a time. And so it was, it was like a really good almost like community bond for like the brand that we worked under within a larger company. And things progressed and changed there and it became a lot bigger. And so we had a lot more access to resources within the company, which was great because we can have other people take care of different things. And that was really good. So there, there's like a benefit to a smaller team, there's benefit to a larger team, in terms of smaller team, you build a really good community. And sometimes you can work really quickly. with larger team, things may take a little bit longer, because there's a lot more communication involved. But you can do a lot more, which is really nice. And now wow, in the company that I'm working for now, which is doing medical devices, it's huge. Like I thought the company that I worked for before was large. But this is massive company, and I'm still I've been there about six months now. And I'm still learning people like oh, that's that's a whole different department. There's a whole bunch of people that do all these things that I had to do at the smaller position. I remember when I was interviewing, my boss was was asking, he's like, Oh, do you know how to do this? And like, yes, I've done that a little bit because I had to because we have a smaller team. And somebody had to do that. And he was like, Okay, we have a whole department for that. Okay, and he's like, do you know how to do this? It was like, I had to do some of that as well, again, because it was a smaller department. He's like, we have a whole department for that. I was like, Okay, what am I supposed to do? Right?

Aaron Moncur:

Where do I fit in? Yeah. Going going back to dragon mountain design. How effective has that been? Like? Have you gotten a lot of inquiries, job inquiries from that? Or have you been able to use it as a tool? When interviewing? Has it been helpful for you in furthering your career?

James Drachenberg:

it actually was when I was looking for my current job. I was unfortunately laid off due to COVID in July of last year, and when I was looking for my new job, I had just included my website, in my CV resume. And it got people talking and they were asking questions about it. They were like, what are you doing here? Like why, like, what's your. And so it was like a really good conversation starter, it had established, Hey, you, you're like passionate about this. And you show this, I also have like my work history on there. So it was also like, Hey, this is also a resume and including all these other cool things that I do.

Aaron Moncur:

That's such a good idea. I mean, as an employer, myself, if I was interviewing someone, and I saw that they had this personal project website, and they had all these really cool CAD designs on there. I mean, you really get the sense that you love doing this stuff. So that goes such a long ways. And in general, I think that's it's a great illustration of an effective way of getting people's attention. Just finding something to differentiate yourself. Right? I actually find that the podcast does that for our company. To some extent, people I know you have this podcast, what's that? Oh, that's cool. And it's different, we can talk about it. That's, that's really what it comes down to. It is something that we can talk about that is unique and different and new, and people are like, Oh, that's cool. Let's talk about that.

James Drachenberg:

Right. Yeah. It's it's a great conversation starter when you're talking to anybody really, especially if they've if they're a little bit familiar with it beforehand. Because I, I tried to be a little bit humble and like, I don't just walk up to new people and be like, Hey, I have a website you should check it out. And

Aaron Moncur:

Here's my card. Drachenberg.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah, I had thought about that at one point just to like make cards or some some unique way to make cards. I was like, Nah, I don't want to do that. I'm not that cool.

Aaron Moncur:

Maybe next year. Yeah. Um, we talked about this a little bit when you were talking about pressure is pressure right pressure printing crucial crucial. Okay. Are there any other vendors that you found to be pretty helpful that people listening to the show might might find...

James Drachenberg:

I feel like everybody says this. It's it's the standard, you're probably gonna guess what it is.

Aaron Moncur:

I'm guessing starts with a Mc and ends with...

James Drachenberg:

Yeah, it's McMaster. Throughout my career, I've used them for countless things. Let me see I actually I put together like a Google Spreadsheet at one point

Aaron Moncur:

I've been trying to get McMaster on the show, but they keep

James Drachenberg:

Really

Aaron Moncur:

They keep saying no thank you, not not now. If anyone can can help me get McMaster on the show, give him 100.

James Drachenberg:

I had met somebody who is related to the McMaster family, but like not part of the company. So otherwise I would track him down. And give them to you but I don't think

Aaron Moncur:

Hundred dollars, it's on the table.

James Drachenberg:

I'm missing and find that. I mean, if you're looking for like, parts, it's definitely McMaster is where you want to go. If you're looking for inserts, I've got pen engineering like pimnet.com got a lot of really good inserts. For like electrical components if you're trying to build like a small lectrosonics project. Adafruit has a lot of really great boards, that are modules, and you can just use them to build different things like one of the one of my earlier projects was building a Gameboy basically, it used emulation in a Raspberry Pi. But then there were like these different modules for like a power supply from Adafruit or a PCB that I could solder everything on to. And so they're really good. They've got a lot of really good projects, if you're just interested in different stuff like that, like Sparkfun, or Mouser, they also have a lot of really good parts.

Aaron Moncur:

Excellent. Adafruit is one that hasn't come up on the show before.

James Drachenberg:

That's surprising. I haven't done a whole lot of electronic projects recently, but I still like watch. Some of the people who make stuff like Noe Ruiz, one of the people who make a bunch of the Adafruit projects like just made this like MIDI fighter board. And he's like, this amazing artist, and he's made all this music with this little mini fighter board. Oh, wow, cool. Like they do a lot of really cool stuff. And they're really, really good about showcasing the stuff that they do.

Aaron Moncur:

Okay, excellent. Tell me a little bit about your how do you start the design process, you're at the beginning of the project. Donnatella is just starting to take form in your mind's eye, what is what are the mental checklists that you go through.

James Drachenberg:

Um, there's a lot of staring at the screen and using my space mouse to rotate it to make sure that I has the shape in all directions. As far as like my my project process, I'll get an idea. And it'll ruminate for a while. And if I don't have time to start working on it, my brain works in this weird way where I'm thinking about how to build it in 3d space just in my head. And then once I can sit down and work on it, I'll start trying to implement some of those things. until it gets to like roughly the right shape. If it's something that I'm that I've already put a lot of time into. And I'm not sure on the fit, I'll do like a test print just to make sure that things fit properly. For instance, with the Ninja Turtles, I didn't just like sit down and make an action figure one day, I thought about what my process was B would be I thought about what articulation I wanted them to have. I at least wanted them to have like shoulder and hip joints. I thought about what kind of accessories I wanted them to have, what I wanted them to be able to do. And so I started I started planning that by just doing like a test design of the shoulder joint and the shoulder and hip joints are the same because I like simplicity. And so I had made this like really goofy looking at rough shaped character with the shoulder joints in these goofy looking arms. And my kids love it. They named in punchy. And I have not released that model. But that was like step one, I wanted to like rough out the idea of making a like it's like it's a TPU joint for the shoulder and hips. So that was step one. And then I refined that a little bit and had to make some adjustments for the size of the Ninja Turtles, so that I could fit enough for like the neck and the shoulders around the same area. And then make sure that I had enough room for the hips so that they didn't look like super wide hips splayed awkward pigeon toed Ninja Turtles, I feel like I got pretty close there. I also like to plan out the way that they're printed when I'm designing. So I try to design everything for the easiest printing experience possible for the Ninja Turtles, if memory serves, and for most of my designs, I try to make it so that you don't have to use a brim on your print settings and you don't have to use support material because I hate post processing. That's like I said with 3d printing being a means to an end like I don't want to spend all my time post processing. Yeah, I would just want it to come off and play with it. And so I put a lot of thought into In my designs for like, how is this going to print? What's a good surface that this can be attached to for the base plate? And how is it going to? How's it going to print? Is it going to be solid enough in this area? Or is this too thin of a wall that it's going to break on a lamination line, or a layer line. And so I put a lot of thought into how it's going to print as I'm designing it.

Aaron Moncur:

I like that you talked about the thought that goes into it before you ever do anything in CAD, right? Architected in your mind. I, I had a hard time sleeping last night, I woke up in the middle of the night. And there's this design that I'm working on right now. And I started thinking about that. So for probably two hours, I was lying in bed last night thinking about how could I do this, I couldn't go to sleep and I didn't really want to get up and walk around or anything. You just lay there and thought about how could I do this design. And so by if by the time I woke up in the morning, I had it mostly designed in my head. And then I could jump on into the CAD and start putting actual geometry together and getting all the fine details worked out.

James Drachenberg:

I've experienced that so many times, and especially, especially like once you've designed to a certain point. And if you're stuck for a little bit, you take a break, you fall asleep, and then you wake up and you've subconsciously like solved that problem.

Aaron Moncur:

Yeah, yeah.

James Drachenberg:

You've subconsciously solved that.

Aaron Moncur:

Yeah.

James Drachenberg:

And so you start playing it out in your head. And then once you implement it, it's it's like the most gratifying feeling.

Aaron Moncur:

It's like magic.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah, that's great. I haven't gotten to that level control. It's more serendipitous for me. Yeah, like love when it happens. I wake up, I'm just like, heck yes, let's do this. And so I'll just like ram almost like running to see if it'll work. Yeah, it's such a great feeling. Is it sometimes I feel like my subconscious is smarter than I am.

Aaron Moncur:

I think my indefinitely as there's no question about that, along with my wife. So let's talk about Cad a little bit, do you have very defined rules for how you go about modeling in CAD.

James Drachenberg:

Um, I like to keep things as simple as possible. I've been like professionally trained in SolidWorks, I'm a CSWP there. And so knowing that there's, there's always going to be someone else looking at my designs, I try to keep things as simple as possible. And I'll talk more about SolidWorks for this part, because I probably have the most experience there. I like to keep all of my features sectioned out in one part, like I'll do all of my features for a certain area, and then I'll folder it, I'll put it in a folder and label it like this is what this is. Yeah, so if you want to make changes to like this part of the design, open up that folder and find it. If it's like an important feature, I'll label that feature, I try to label things as much as possible. But I, I really liked the folder feature in SolidWorks. And so I will folder like big chunks of design for like, like when the last one of the last projects that I worked on, at my former employer was would like glue guns. And so if it had anything to do with the hot end, that there was like a folder for hot end features. And then there was a folder for like handle features a folder for glue entry features and stuff like that. And then so those would be like the base features. And then from there there would be like the finishing things like the drafts of the molding drafts would have there would be labeled as like hot end draft features and then the end so I like to keep it sectioned off like that, because it's really really easy to lose your place especially if you're looking at something somebody else worked on. Yeah, and so I I always wanted to set up my design so that anyone could look at them and get a vague a vague idea of what the intent was and what the flow was so that they can either recreate it or they can make changes where they need to make changes

Aaron Moncur:

I, core value number three at Pipeline is suffocate chaos, promote order. That is...

James Drachenberg:

I like that. I like that

Aaron Moncur:

Yeah, it's good, right? But the folders I love using folders in SolidWorks I love being able to rename the individual features sometimes I get down to that level of granularity and renamed the individual features because it makes it so clear to so organized, it's just something that feels so great about a really clean well organized model

James Drachenberg:

Anyone can look at it and know exactly what you're doing.

Aaron Moncur:

Yeah, yeah. Makes me feel like like Leonardo da Vinci or so.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah.

Aaron Moncur:

Great artist. Yeah. All right. Well, let's see what are, what are a few habits that you've developed over the years that have proved useful for you?

James Drachenberg:

Give me more specific. Like, what are you what are you getting at?

Aaron Moncur:

No, not that habit like, like I used to have, I actually still have a pretty regimented morning routine where, okay, I'll wake up, help the kids get out, and then I work out, and then I eat something and then then I shower and then I start working like it's the same thing. And that has been helpful for me just getting me into the flow of the day. But I don't know reading books at night or mental exercises to get yourself into flow. Yeah, whatever.

James Drachenberg:

Great. Yeah, so I, I'm an early riser, I wake up around five. Sometimes when I'm really sleepy, I'll lay in bed and stare at my phone for a few minutes. But I typically will get up come out to the workshop, just to have some quiet time for a while. And once that's over, and then I'm satisfied with that, I'll go like make coffee, and then make sure that the kids are ready. start my day work, work until lunch. And that one of the one of the wonderful benefits of working from home is that I can spend my lunch break with my kids. So my wife is able to get some time off, we're able to play and have a really good time. Finish up my day. And then I have like a schedule of like, Okay, I'm gonna work out these these days. I'm gonna do other things on certain days. But having a routine and a schedule is really, really good for me. It helps keep me sane and regulated, especially during these weird times.

Aaron Moncur:

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's good for most people. Yeah. Have you ever been in a situation where you were faced with some challenge or problem that was far beyond your capability to solve at that point in time? And how did you handle that situation? What What did you learn from it? Oh, wow, okay. I'm putting you on the spot, yeah.

Unknown:

You are putting me on the spot. It's weird, because I feel like I'm in that situation right now, especially with a reorganization at my job. And I'm still like learning a lot and figuring that out. So I don't have an answer for that specifically, or that situation, specifically. But throughout life, like challenges have posed themselves. And I don't know, like, I think one of the key things is being able to give yourself grace, and know that you don't have all the answers. And once you can identify that you don't have those answers, to seek assistance, or help, or someone who's already been down that road, see if they have any advice to offer or assistance that they can provide. That's that's probably the best answer that I can give right now is that when when a challenge is too great for you, I would not recommend the shouldering through it, because you could hurt yourself or burn yourself out. So if assistance is available, or if somebody is there that can help help you with that burden. Take that.

Aaron Moncur:

I actually have the same answer. Yeah. Like, the times I think back on when there was just something that was so hard, I didn't know how to do it. Having a mentor, right or somebody you could turn to a group, a team, whoever it is someone you can turn to for help is just so helpful. All right. Well, let's see. We'll wrap this up in just a few minutes here.

James Drachenberg:

Sure.

Aaron Moncur:

Let me ask you one more question. What has been the most exciting or interesting project that you've worked on to date as an engineer?

James Drachenberg:

Oh, boy, um, are we talking like personal project wise, or your career? Either one, um, I guess I could do a little bit of both. So so at my last company, I had the opportunity to design something brand new, and I was granted, or the company was granted a patent. And I was listed as the sole inventor of it. That was like a bucket list thing. I was so excited about it. I actually have they sent me a plaque. The legal team, like worked, worked some magic and got me a plaque. And they sent it to me and so it's up in my workshop now. And so and whenever I get discouraged, I'm like, No, I've got a patent I've got a patent.

Aaron Moncur:

That's right.

James Drachenberg:

So that's, that's like a major milestone. And that was super rewarding. It was a really rewarding project overall. But just to like, have that feeling of, of creating something so new that like the government recognized it, you know?

Aaron Moncur:

Yeah, good for you.

James Drachenberg:

So career wise, that has been like something that's really rewarding. And then personal project wise. I don't know I've really enjoyed like the wide variety of the projects that I've worked on Robo kiddie probably put me on the map for a lot of people, which is funny. I love that name. I know, there's a backstory to that it's on the website.

Aaron Moncur:

Go check it out everyone.

James Drachenberg:

Go check it out. So that, like that got a lot of buzz. And people were really excited about that. And so that was super exciting. But there's also like a double edge to that sort, then you'll have the haters come out and be like, hey, this design didn't work at all. And I'm like, Well, actually, like, look at all these other people who were successful. Yeah. But then, yeah, the Ninja Turtles action figures. I think I've made I think I've made like, eight of them now. Total. Maybe? Yeah, I think I've made eight of them, eight of them total. And that's been like a really rewarding and really exciting project for me. I'm hoping to do more. I'm still learning all the ins and outs of free CAD. To try and build up my skills. I made a little baby Yoda is like a practice for action figures. I don't have one right here, but made them for like all my family members, and they were freaking out about it.

Aaron Moncur:

Oh, that's awesome.

James Drachenberg:

Yeah. So So yeah, it's it's always a constant learning process.

Aaron Moncur:

Well, James, it has been so fun to talk to you. I highly recommend, and everyone listening to this. Go to James's website and check it out. It's it's dragonmountaindesign.com. Is that right?

James Drachenberg:

Correct. dragonmountaindesign.com. All one word. There's no spaces or anything.

Aaron Moncur:

Yeah, you have to check it out. Just because it's, it's cool. It's fun. It'll make you smile. There's just some really cool projects on there. And before we sign off, just a note to you, dear listener, if you have any one in particular that you would like to hear from, or a topic or subject that you'd like to hear about, please shoot us a note. Let us know at info@teampipeline.us. We'd love to hear about you. We'd love to hear from you and are very open to feedback about what what you might like to hear about in the future. All right, well, James, how can people get a hold of you?

James Drachenberg:

You can always go to my website. Leave me a comment on any one of the many posts there. You can also find me on LinkedIn. Just James Dreachenberg. Yeah, I'm happy to communicate, for the most part,

Aaron Moncur:

For the most part.

James Drachenberg:

Within reason, within reason.

Aaron Moncur:

Yeah. All right. Well, is there anything that we haven't talked about that we should have?

James Drachenberg:

I don't think so. I don't think so. Thank you for having me on. I've really enjoyed this time.

Aaron Moncur:

Awesome. All right. Well, James, thank you. This has been just a splendid and delightful I'm really appreciate it.

James Drachenberg:

Good. Thank you.

Aaron Moncur:

I'm Aaron Moncure, founder of Pipeline Design, and Engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please share the episode. To learn how your team can leverage our team's expertise developing turnkey equipment, custom fixtures and automated machines and with product design, visit us at teampipeline.us. Thanks for listening.