Rebecca Arens may be just a student but she was able to beat an instructor to capture top prize in the annual Design Slam competition held at Autodesk University 2022.
Using Fusion 360, the contestants in the Grand Slam had to build a part/assembly voted on by the attendees from two choices they were previously informed of. The first round was a retro audio speaker. The second and final round had the contestants design something to do with an EV (electric vehicle). Rebecca’s design of a EV charger may have been not as sexy as the whole EV, but it was original and modeled well enough to beat the other finalist, Thom, a Fusion 360 instructor.
Rebecca is in the final year of an industrial design program at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), an institution renowned for its industrial design program. She hails from Martinez, in the San Francisco Bay area. Her capstone project is accessible playground equipment.
Honestly, how can you not like this young lady?
Rebecca’s choice of Fusion 360 is heartfelt. She prefers it over Rhino and SOLDWORKS, both of which she has tried. The former is the favorite of industrial designers and the latter, the favorite of mechanical designer and engineers.
“Fusion 360 is a powerful design tool. It lets you come up with an idea first and even halfway through the designing something, you can kind of mold and do things in a really unique way,” says Rebecca. “You can’t do that with other engineering software.”
For her effort, Rebecca wins a Lenovo P360 Ultra mini workstation and was presented a championship belt worthy of a boxing or wrestling champion, though perhaps not quite as bejeweled.
“But it has my name on it,” says Rebecca, ever so good naturedly.
Find out more about Rebecca and her designs on her website.