One of my primary focuses was in manufacturing, where I would create and assemble components. Nearly every week I would be in the machine shop, grinding out piece after piece with the milling machine and the lathe. This gave me the experience to design products that are simple to produce and assemble. During the final stages of suspension assembly, I encountered a critical problem and had to work against the clock in an overnight, on-the-spot redesign process. I worked around the mistakes of the old model, scavenged for spare parts, and made sure that this new fix wouldn't break. After this was finished, we had a working suspension just in time for the first public reveal of the pod.

During the one week of testing and approval, we faced the gauntlet of SpaceX employees critqueing every small detail and every possible flaw. Every time they found an error, the following night was committed to fixing that error. I was jumping between fixing the magnetic brakes at an auto shop to conducting FEA and CFD analysis at the Airbnb to bending and swageing pneumatic pipes on the competition lot. After the brutal fight through the safety and communication checks, competition weekend arrived, and we earned ourselves an Innovation Award!