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Auston Ferrarer, EDI '23Product Design, Design Engineering, Product Management

About

Auston has pursued his passion of physical product development during his academic and professional career. During his time as a mechanical engineering undergrad at Georgia Tech, he spent three years as a prototyping instructor in the campus makerspace. He spent hundreds of hours learning, operating, and teaching rapid prototyping methodologies and tool groups. These ranged from clay and foam core modeling to machining and multi-axis water jet cutting. He also has 10 months of experience as a mechanical design intern specializing in medical device development for an engineering design and manufacturing consultancy (Plexus Corp.) in Raleigh, NC.

Portfolio

Visit Auston's portfolio >

Why EDI?

During an entrepreneurship based senior design course in his final semester at Georgia Tech, Auston and his team had the incredible opportunity to get low-fidelity versions of their product in the hands of their intended users. The first thing they noticed was that the users had difficulty navigating the interface. This interfered with accessing some of the features his team spent significant time developing across earlier iterations. A few months later when he was working for Plexus, he noticed how many resources were invested in bringing potential users to the company's design center and having them interact with various functional and/or aesthetic prototypes. What Auston realized through both of those experiences was the value of truly understanding the interactions between customers and products. And then using this knowledge to influence design choices. This is what he hopes to learn more about and explore first hand as a member of the EDI cohort.

Education

BS, Mechanical Engineering , Georgia Institute of Technology 

Experience

Mechanical design engineer intern, Plexus Corporation

Misc

Auston has a developing passion for bouldering and can be found at the local climbing gym most nights he's not on campus. He also has some experience with educational technology and is very interested in bringing 21st century prototyping techniques to underserved student populations.

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