Casey Fienberg,
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Casey Fienberg's impressive 3D modeling skills have enabled her to start her own business--while still a high school student! She creates and prints custom 3D models for individuals and small businesses and also sells printed models of her designs online. Her dream is to one day work at NASA as a mechanical engineer. She looks forward to building things that will help advance our understanding of the universe, and benefit all of us here on Earth.
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How I got started
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In my freshman year of high school, I signed up for a four year engineering elective. The first year was all about the design process, and the main thing we learned was 3D modeling using the CAD software Autodesk Inventor.
I was initially frustrated by Inventor. I couldn’t seem to get the controls to work, every time I made a change it would screw up five other parts of the model, and overall I didn’t even really understand what we were doing. As the year went on, however, I started getting more comfortable with the software, and I fell in love with the process. About halfway through the year, I found myself with some extra time in the class, and I decided to make something for fun, and not for an assignment. As soon as I started, I found I couldn’t stop. I started eating my lunch every day in my engineering classroom so I could have an extra 35 minutes to work. Sure it was still frustrating, and I was still making plenty of mistakes, but I had started to learn why I was making them and how to fix them. When the school year ended, the first thing I did was download Inventor on my home computer, and I’ve been using it ever since. |
Challenges I overcame
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When I first started doing designs for other people, I almost gave up right away! Nearly every client I got would ask me to make something that I had no clue how to do, and I worried I would let them down. I realized that I’d really only learned the basics of the program in school, and I was at the very tip of the iceberg when it came to all the different tools and techniques there were to learn. For every new design request I got, I had to teach myself a new aspect of the software. It was intimidating at first, but got easier with each project I completed, and I started to look at having to learn new techniques as a positive rather than a negative. Even today after I’ve completed over 100 designs for clients, and probably doubled my knowledge of CAD, almost every project teaches me something new.
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Advice for Innovators
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My advice would be to find something you enjoy doing, and do more of it in any way you can. You can learn just about anything using the internet, so you can pursue any activity you can think of. I don’t think you can ever go wrong doing what you love, and I find that the best ideas come when you’re having fun.
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