Zane Bacon

Background

About Zane Bacon

I started school for manufacturing at Shoreline Community College. About a year into the program, a supervisor from Amazon came by and asked one of the program heads about the most promising students and she called me over from across the shop. The following conversation turned into a 3-month internship working hand-in-hand with engineers to make delivery drones. The desire to pursue a career in engineering was a welcome side effect. I got my Associates in Applied Arts & Sciences after the internship and immediately started prereqs for attending the University of Washington. I was lucky enough to get most of my prep classes paid for and was accepted on my first application to the UW Bothell campus. Getting my Bachelor's degree was some of the most fun I've had in school. I met incredible people, solidified my fascination with material properties and mechanical systems, and even got to apply engineering principles to my favorite childhood topic: dinosaurs. A group trip to Japan to study their altered energy sector after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster stands above the rest, though. After graduating, I worked at Travis Industries in manufacturing planning, product testing, and designing a novel electric fireplace. I spent several months at Ballard Machineworks in machine maintenance and repair, one-off manufacturing projects, and procurement. I decided to go back to school to study prosthetics engineering and applied to the UW Seattle School of Mechanical Engineering for a Master's degree. Through my courses there, I have strengthened my aspiration to use my engineering talent to sustainably help people. I'm focusing on biomechanics and prosthetics to accomplish that. Throughout all of my education and work history, I've been a hobbyist blacksmith and knife-maker. I dream of setting up my own forge and making tools and art and useful objects when I'm not engineering the next generation of artificial limbs. I'm also an avid gamer and absolutely love sci-fi media. Passions: Biomechanics, Prosthetics, Mechatronics, Complex Mechanical Assemblies and Moving Parts, CAD, Mechanical Systems Design, Manufacturing Design, 3D Printing, Rapid Prototyping, Communicating engineering concepts to a nontechnical audience, Metrology, Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing, Creative Problem Solving. Honors and Activities: PNW Bridge Builders Association 2011 Bridge Competition Winner. Volunteer camp counselor for kids and teens with autoimmune disorders.