I recently worked as an Integration Engineer at The Boring Company, where I led the production and integration of a major subsystem for the next-gen tunnel boring machine, Prufrock. The role was very hands-on. I was driving design feedback, managing production timelines, and supporting the creation of our manufacturing execution system (MES) to keep the production team moving forward. It’s a fast-evolving, highly technical environment, and I’ve really enjoyed being at the intersection of mechanical design, and operations.
For the 2 years prior to this, I have worked in various leadership positions at Niagara Bottling. Most recently I was a preventative maintenance supervisor and night shift supervisor. Niagara specializes in high volume production of plastic bottles creating millions of bottles a day. This leads to a fast pace, high performance environment which I thrive in. Managing the maintenance teams in these roles gave me experience in taking care of my teams needs and getting them to perform consistently, while meeting the expectations for my management team. Leading any team can be a challenge, but seeing my team accomplish something great has been one of the most rewarding experiences.
Before Niagara, I worked at Aero Turbine which was another great experience in the maintenance, repair and overhaul of turbine jet engines. My primary focus was stream lining the root cause analysis process for quality defects, and sending reports to customers explaining the cause of the failure to meet their specifications. In addition to this, I supported different projects requiring precision manufacturing where I redesigned parts and set up contracts with shops around America.
During my time at the University of the Pacific I competed on their Division 1 swim team, and started a Formula SAE team. I competed with the swim team every year except for my 5th year, during which I went to the FSAE competition. I love to compete and I found the rush to be similar in both sports. During this time I also worked for Guntert and Zimmerman, a company that specializes in design and manufacturing of heavy machinery for paving concrete. My role there included execution of engineering change orders, and the updating of drawings and assemblies in CAD. It was my first exposure to industry-standard engineering processes and left a strong impression on how I work today.
In my senior year (2022), I led University of the Pacific's first Formula SAE team to compete at the Michigan Speedway. We competed in all dynamic and static events, placing 42nd out of 100 teams with a first-year car.
I have been interested in turbine jet engines for a long time. This is a kit from Mini Jets that required me to weld, braze, machine, and assemble most of the parts. I also built my own auxiliary test stand, including fuel system, ignition system, and data collection.
I built and programmed this robot arm to explore the idea of an autonomous kitchen in my own home. The design of the arm is from How to Mechatronics and I used a Jetson Nano to learn about neural networks to handle the image recognition.
I have loved flight since I was a kid, and I still enjoy building RC Planes and Drones weather they be 3D printed, carbon fiber, or made out of cardboard. The plane above has a 1.6m wing span and is 3D printed with a design kit from 3DLabPrint .
I assembled the MK3 Prusa 3D printer in 2018, and after about a year, I created this enclosure to contain the fumes, provide a stable ambient temperature, better lighting, and a large storage area for up to 15 different spools underneath.
I have used Solidworks for everything from school, to work. I enjoy working in CAD and recently I have started to work with Siemens version of CAD Solid Edge. Here you can find some of the models I have created and the drawings that I have made.
This was a project for my advanced manufacturing class. The report is complete with a basic wiring diagram, CAD files, and parts list for a full desktop CNC.
This was a carbon fiber analysis project for my material science class. It was a great introduction to making carbon fiber and testing it using a 3 point bending test.
The purpose of this experiment was to validate a cost effective ($20) method of finding the intrinsic viscosity of a polymer. This project is significance because currently the only way to reliably determine the intrinsic viscosity for commercial applications, is by using million dollar equipment.
Jan Schlegel Mechanical Engineering and Manufacturing '22 If you have any questions about my projects, work experience, or would like to partner with me, please do not hesitate to reach out. Austin, TX 832-290-8012 schlegelj13@gmail.com