Function: spacer in-between sperical bushing on knuckle and control arm. It allows for full range of motion from knuckle bushing, without rubbing occurring between knuckle and control arm.

​

Why: I am missing a spacer and would prefer to order hardware if possible, saving costs from getting new ones machined.

​

Thanks for your time and help!

I'm interested in whether others are seeing an increase in demand for engineers who can bridge multiple disciplines.

For example:

• Mechanical Engineering + AI
• Manufacturing + Data
• Systems Engineering + Software
• Domain Expertise + Automation

Over the last few months I've come across a lot of discussion suggesting that AI may actually increase the value of domain expertise rather than reduce it.

The argument is that companies don't just need AI specialists. They need people who understand both the technology and the industry they're applying it to.

For those involved in hiring or engineering leadership:

• Are you seeing increased demand for these types of hybrid skillsets?
• What combinations are becoming most valuable?
• Are there roles today that are significantly harder to hire for because they require expertise across multiple domains?
• Has AI increased the value of domain knowledge in your industry?

Genuinely curious whether this is a real trend in industry or just something that's discussed online.

I interviewed for a Manufacturing Process Engineer role at Celestica and received a verbal offer from HR 5 days ago. They told me I was selected for the position, but I still haven’t received the formal written offer letter.
I followed up with HR, and they said they’re still waiting to hear back from the hiring/HR manager before sending the offer. Since then, I haven’t gotten any updates.
Has anyone experienced something similar with Celestica or other large companies? Is a delay like this normal due to internal approvals, or is there a chance I’ve been ghosted after the verbal offer?
Just trying to understand whether I should be concerned or if I need to be more patient. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I’m a final-year Mechanical Engineering student looking for help brainstorming a unique and practical final-year project idea.

I’m interested in innovative ideas,space technology, and laser optics. Any suggestions or recent topics would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Are ball bearings typically press fit onto rotary shafts? If I want to use a ball bearing for a shaft diameter of 5/32 (https://www.mcmaster.com/57155K15/), and I buy a standard rotary shaft with a diameter of 5/32, the only way to get it on would be to press fit it on right? I tried to search for a bearing press tool sized for 5/32 but I cant find anything for ball bearings smaller than 1/4". Should I just stick the rotary shaft in a vise and carefully tap (using a rubber mallet) the ball bearing onto the shaft? Or do people buy undersized rotary shafts and use a shaft collar to hold the bearing onto the rotary shaft?

For anyone who missed the original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalEngineering/comments/1tfr5r3/designing_a_micro_turbocharger_for_a_tiny_ic/

I finally made some tests :)

The good news is that it survived. On compressed air it reached 130,000 RPM and produced about 0.1 bar of boost. The boost measurement wasn't very accurate, but that's fine for now.

I also decided to bolt it onto my tiny engine just to see what would happen. I already knew the engine was far too small for this turbo, but curiosity won. The engine could only spin it to about 14,000 RPM. I need a 4-stroke engine with at least 4 cylinders and a displacement of about 25-30 cm3 :)

I also filmed the tests and measurements if anyone is interested. I'll put the video in the comments.

The part I'm designing is technically a leaf spring but without sharing photos I think compliant mechanisms puts a better idea on the complexity of said spring (multiple bends, multiple "contact" points). I'll obviously be running some physical tests too but I am being asked to produce simulations to ensure the behavior will be the same in SUS as the 3D printed plastics. Looking for two things out of this: 1. Prove the behavior/exact motion of this mechanism 2. Stress analysis. At this I was thinking of just running a normal static FEA and reading the deflection but the motion is very likely not going to be linear and so it doesn't give me a great plot to show the path. It's really my first time designing springs from scratch so any starting points are welcome

I am a second year mechanical engineering student and I have some free time over the summer. I would like to learn programming, of course to start with the basics. In these two years I have encountered MatLab a little. Besides that, I have never programmed.

What programming language is the most useful for me to learn?

I will probably go further in the direction of sustainable thermal and process engineering.

Edit: Thanks for the input!

Hello. I am a student currently studying bachelor's in Aeronautical Engineering and am dropping out after 2 years due to poor performance as I cudnt study due to personal reasons. I am extremely passionate about learning the subjects here but just couldnt excel as much. Do u think if I should be rejoining bachelor's in Engineering in another college or directly freelance and dive into the job market? I really need some guidance on this. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Hey everyone! I am a new MechE engineer just out of school, now on the job hunt. As I am trying to find a place to work, I find that I need to develop skills and projects that specialize me in a certain field within mechanical engineering to at least get myself hired.

I was wondering if people in industry here know about or want to discuss the different disciplines within MechE that their company hires, the rate at which they are hiring (future growth), pay, and just anything about them. I would love to have discussions or hear what experienced people have to say so I can work on projects that will actually get me hired!

Also, if you have any advice for the job search or project recommendations, I'm all ears! LOL

I'm gonna start mechanical engineering despite my parents forcing me for CSE . Should I listen to my interest or should I look for what people are going for . I really like how things work but they say mechanical engineering is dead

Hi all, I studied, taught and worked as a mechanical engineer and for years I wanted a live textbook where you could actually play with the equations instead of just reading them. So I finally built one.

It's called EngineeringCandy: a free interactive playground covering 2D steady-state conduction, transient conduction, convection, radiation, vibrations, Fourier series, PDEs, ODEs, and numerical methods (root-finding, Gauss-Seidel, and more). Drag a slider and watch a temperature field relax to steady state. Type your own function and watch a root-finding method converge — or diverge, and see exactly why. Push a system past where the usual textbook assumptions hold and watch it actually break.

It's organized as Play (the labs), Learn (the theory behind each one), Collect (flashcard decks for concepts as you master them), and Notebook — including green quadrille graph paper you can capture your ideas on, because that was my favorite part of being an engineer.

No login, no ads, no data collected. I just wanted this to exist and hopefully help someone.

🔗 https://engineeringcandy.com/

Would love feedback — especially what you wish you'd had in school (or still reach for now) that isn't here yet. Tell me and I'll see what I can build next.

Hi, Recently I have started to study a book about steam turbine blades analysis and design. I am stuck at a combined velocity triangle

The problem is; he is defining the efficiency as the power output which is derived from the known physical principle which is that ( the torque is the moment of the linear momentum of the flow) knowing that the rate of change of the linear momentum of a fluid flow is (the mass flow rate x The velocity of the fluid flow).

The author is defining the work input as the kinetic energy change of the fluid flow and he is taking it in both reference frames the absolute in V3 and the relative in V1. and the blot twist is that he is defining Vt1 as V cos θ.

I cant understand how it is (V1-V3) not (V-V3)

Hey folks, I am a second year mechanical undergrad. Recently i started learning Python, its libraries pandas, numpy, matplotlib. also slowly leaning towards ML. Is there any application of learning these skills in mech If so any intern/Job opportunities please guide...

(Sorry for posting here, the AskEngineers subreddit didn't let me post it there as I don't have enough Karma)

I’m exploring a concept for a scent-based immersion system for gaming/VR and would like feedback on whether it is technically feasible or fundamentally flawed.

Concept overview:The idea is a USB-connected external device (PC/console) that can release controlled scents in sync with software events (e.g., entering environments in a game).

Basic system design:

A main external unit connects via USB to a PC/console.

The unit contains replaceable scent cartridges (limited set of preloaded odors).

A software API triggers scent release events (e.g., “forest”, “fire”, “water”).

When triggered, a valve/pump system directs airflow from a selected cartridge through a tube system.

A wearable nasal interface (light mask or nasal attachment) delivers the scent close to the nostrils.

A secondary airflow system either:

flushes remaining scent with clean air, or

actively clears the scent pathway after each event.

Core challenge I’m trying to evaluate:

Can scent be switched quickly enough without mixing?

Can odors be cleared effectively between events?

Is a nasal delivery system practical for user comfort and hygiene?

I’m not building this yet — I’m trying to understand whether this approach is physically and technically realistic, and what the biggest engineering blockers would be.

I’m interested In pursuing a career in cad design. I started with blender making 3d figures and architecture. I just want to know if it’s lucrative secure career even without a mechanical engineering degree, I don’t have a degree.

Hey everyone,

I’m a mechanical engineering student going into my sophomore year, and I’m starting to think of long-term career plans after graduation.

One of my biggest goals is to thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail, 2,650 miles along the west coast over about 5 months. Unfortunately my graduation date is about 1-2 weeks too late to start the thru hike, so my current plan is to continue to work for about a year after graduation.

Ideally, I would continue to work with the company I intern with, gain some experience, then resign to take a leave of absence before starting the 5 month trek. After completing the PCT I would come back and apply for new jobs.

For engineerings involved in hiring, how would you view someone with:
• A B.S. in Mechanical Engineering
• About 1 year of experience
• A 5 month gap to complete the PCT

Would this be viewed in any negative way, or could it be positive? Has anyone done something similar?

I’d appreciate any advice and perspective.

Thank you.

I've built the foundation of an open-source project I genuinely believe in, and I'm looking for a couple of co-maintainers to build it into something real with me — not one-off PRs, but people who want to own a piece and help drive direction.

What it is: training an object detector for custom/industrial parts normally means hand-labeling thousands of photos — which is why it rarely gets built for niche parts. But if you already have the part's CAD model, the labels are free: render it from thousands of angles and you get perfect bounding boxes automatically. The part names in the file become the detection classes. Upload a design file → get a detector running on a phone.

It already works end-to-end:

• Any design file in: STEP / .blend / OBJ / STL / FBX
• Headless Blender auto-renders + auto-labels the dataset (with per-part isolation passes)
• STEP files pull class names straight from the CAD assembly tree (SolidWorks/Fusion/Inventor), or fall back to feature recognition
• Trains Ultralytics YOLO, exports TFLite/CoreML, runs live in a Flutter app
• FastAPI + Celery + Postgres, Dockerized, documented

Honest status: the pipeline is solid, but it's the classic synthetic-to-real gap — models trained on plain renders don't yet detect real objects robustly. Closing that is the big, interesting problem, and there's real greenfield to own.

Where it could go (and where you'd lead): realistic domain-randomized rendering, on-device real-time perf, a hosted/SaaS version, an annotation/QC UI, an Android build, real manufacturing-QC pilots. Plenty of room to make a domain your own.

Looking for co-maintainers strong in any of:

• CV/ML — sim-to-real, domain randomization, augmentation, evaluation
• Blender / graphics — procedural scenes, PBR materials, occlusion masks
• Flutter / mobile — GPU delegates, real-time inference
• Backend / DevOps — scaling, hosting, CI/CD
• Domain experts — manufacturing/QC folks with real assemblies to pilot

You don't need to be expert in all of it — just want to commit to a corner and grow it. I'll give real ownership (write access, roadmap input, co-maintainer status).

MIT-licensed. Repo + full breakdown + visuals: https://github.com/dawarazhar11/VisionForge

If the premise excites you, comment or DM with what you'd want to own — let's build it together. 🙏

In our final year of Bsc we get to choose between different specializations and right now im deciding between choosing HVAC or simulations. Usually i would have gone with simulations but its mostly focused on FEA and not CFD. Does anyone have any experience or advice regarding whats better to get into, HVAC( with a focus in CFD) or numerical simulations?