Andrew Browning - he makes cool stuff with big machines

Andrew Browning

Face@FaceCo.net

Preface:

I am a 22 year old tinker who has long been fascinated, sometimes to the point of destruction, with disassembling, reassembling, repurposing, redesigning, and generally making Stuff. I was exposed to machining when I was eight, when I made a hawaiin sling for spear fishing; with which I caught a very large bass and poked a very small hole in a friend of mine. I've been making things my own and making things of my own since then.

Skills:

Summary:

Well rounded manual mechining

CNC milling, including 4th axis

CAD/CAM skill including basic organic forms and assemblies

Mechanical and electrical systems engineering

I am proficient in Solidworks and MasterCAM. I am comfortable in a few other software suites, listed below in decreasing order;

AutoCAD R14

MATLAB

Ashlar Vellum CAD packages

Inventor

Pro/e

I am proficient on manual knee mills, engine lathes, and surface grinders. I am comfortable with most other standard shop tools, including some sheet metal devices such as turret punches, rollers, and manual brakes.

I am comfortable using HAAS CNC mills, including both basic indexing and live 4th axis work. I have a basic knowledge of generic fixturing methods, although my real world experience is a bit lacking beyond basic workholding.

I have a solid understanding of mechanical systems, with special focus on powertrains and pneumatic systems, backed up by a solid working knowledge of electrical control systems. I am very good at developing complete systems, though I lack some finesse in engineering peice parts.

Technical experience:

Beside my general messing about, I've been competing in robotics competitions for about 10 years. I've made robots for FIRST, battlebots, a local electrothon racing club, and a local underwater ROV club (tethered submarines used to do tasks assigned by the local nuclear power plant). I've also done various small robots for technical classes in high school and college.

My battlebots experience is the most diverse, including nine 120lb and four 15lb robots. The two most important things I've learned from the experience are organization (including project organization, task allocation, and documentation) and how to work with budgets ranging from $1,500 to $75,000.

I recently graduated from Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis with an AAS in machine tool technologies, where I spent time on both manual and CNC machines.

I worked last summer at Sapphire Engineering, an ISO-9000 certified engineering and manufacturing firm focused on building metered fluid pumps and fluid control products for the medical industry. There I spent time lapping, honing, deburring, and assembling products made from several plastics, stainless, titanium, and crystalline alumina (sapphire and ruby). I also did a few rework operations to bring previously machined parts into spec.

I have designed and built, from scratch, a functional electro-pneumatic paintball gun. I was too young when I completed it to know how to get it on the market, and it is now unfortunately obsolete.

Almost everything I own has been personalized in some way.