Another group at the lab needed a custom test bed and data acquisition system, and there was no standing team to build it. The real work was assembling the people before assembling the hardware.
Another group at the lab needed a custom test bed and data acquisition system built. No standing team existed for it. Design, fabrication, instrumentation, and software all had to be assembled from scratch.
Unlike Parker Meggitt’s more integrated team structure, this lab environment required actively pulling together expertise project-by-project: design engineering, manufacturing, procurement, instrumentation, and software, each living in a different group.
I knew a software engineer in a different group and sensed that group could use the work as much as my team needed the expertise. I took the time to understand what that group actually needed before proposing anything, then brought forward a partnership that solved a real problem on both sides.
It worked because of the relationship and trust I had built with that group, not just because the skills happened to line up on paper.
I spec’ed and sourced the instrumentation, triaxial accelerometers, a force transducer, the vibration plate table, and the full data acquisition system. I coordinated the effort with the design engineering team. I acted as the main liaison to the requesting group, translating technical status into terms that kept a stakeholder group calm and informed. That covered status, risk, mitigation plans, schedule, and critical-path tracking.
Built, assembled, and ran the first round of preliminary testing before transitioning to grad school.