Mechanical Engineering Co-op | Fikst | Jan - Jun 2026
Fikst Co-op
Fikst Product Development Studio — Six-month co-op, mechanical engineering team
Role & Company
A small studio, a fast-moving mechanical team
Fikst is a product development studio that takes ideas from sketch to shippable hardware for early-stage and established clients alike. I joined the mechanical engineering team for a six-month co-op, working alongside industrial designers and electrical engineers on consumer hardware programs moving through concept, prototyping, and design-for-manufacture.
Project Overview
Reworking an optical hardware line for manufacture
My primary program involved re-engineering a hinge and lens-mounting assembly for a client’s eyewear product line. The existing design worked in prototype form but wasn’t ready for injection molding or high-volume assembly, so the brief was to simplify part count, tighten tolerances, and preserve the product’s feel.
Responsibilities
From CAD iteration to bench validation
I owned the hinge subassembly end to end: modeling design iterations in SolidWorks, running tolerance stacks, building FDM and SLA prototypes for fit checks, and presenting design reviews to the client twice a month. I also supported DFM feedback sessions with our contract manufacturer in the later stage of the program.
Technical Contributions
Cutting part count from eleven to six
The biggest win was consolidating the hinge into fewer molded parts by combining a fastening boss and a wear-bushing feature into a single geometry, which removed a secondary insertion step on the assembly line. I validated the new design against 10,000-cycle open/close fatigue testing before handing it to manufacturing.
Skills Applied
SolidWorks
GD&T / Tolerance Stacks
Rapid Prototyping
Design for Manufacture
Client Design Reviews