Question: what is mechanical designing about

Eleanor Sherwen answered on 4 Oct 2017:

Mechanical design is a type of design which focuses on working out how to solve a problem using solid stuff and mechanisms (as opposed to electronics). It tends to focus more on the functional and technical side of design; selecting the right material property or spring rate or tooth profile to make a whole mechanism work, or drawing up a shape that will be strong and stand up to all the bumps and shocks of use. For this I need to understand things like drive systems (motors and gears), metal properties, damage done to parts by fatigue and static stress.

Because it’s still design, I still get to do lots of bits on my projects that aren’t purely mechanical, like the visual design, the research into the user. Most designers tend to work quite broadly and do a range of different types of design; it’s just that my specialisation is mechanical and mechanisms, whereas another designer might specialise in the visual design and be really skilled at drawing/surface modelling beautiful shapes but be less specialised at making the bits inside the product move how they want.

On a bicycle there’s an awful lot of mechanisms and parts which have to be strong when loaded in certain ways, so there’s quite a lot of mechanical designers at Brompton. But we do have a few designers who focus more on other things like aesthetics, graphics, tooling/production, and on bags and accessories which are a bit of a different skillset. When our projects cross into each others’ specialities we work together to give each other advice or help out on that project for a bit.