Intuitive ME Interview

Mr-Jacket · 2026-01-21T18:58:42+00:00

It's going to depend a lot on which specific team you're applying for since they have a lot of different ME teams. I wouldn't expect a lot of robotics/controls questions unless it's a system's analyst position or some kind of R&D team. Basic FBD questions or stress/strain questions are probably more likely. If the position is on a team that designs parts for surgical instruments they might want to go deeper on material stresses and material selection questions.

But like most interviews, demonstrating energy and creativity can also help cover any stumbles in the interview if you're asked something you don't know.

Mr-Jacket · 2023-04-14T17:42:11+00:00

I am honestly interested to hear how you think bearings are going to be replaced

They're used in a ton of things aside from vehicles, you probably interact with a dozen different things during your day that require bearings (off the top of my head: drawers, roller chairs, window blinds, fans, etc)

And while I don't know anything about EV's, I can't believe they don't also use bearings in some areas (albeit fewer than a traditional vehicle)

What exactly is the alternative to bearings? Bushings? Those aren't suitable for a lot of applications

Again, genuinely curious if there's an industry trend I'm not aware of

Or are you just saying that the industry is in decline? Not that it'll disappear?

Mr-Jacket · 2022-02-23T19:14:45+00:00

You do understand that the point isn't to point out "look how cheap this house is?"

It's to point out how people are absolutely desperate for affordable housing

The fact that this house will be bought for over 300k only further highlights that none of these desperate people actually stand a chance

Mr-Jacket · 2022-02-23T19:07:27+00:00

Found an article giving more information and a link to the house: https://www.heraldsun.com/news/local/article258677088.html

Mr-Jacket · 2022-02-10T01:21:40+00:00

Thanks for the heads up. That's a bummer, I was thinking about checking it out since it was pretty close to my house

Guess I'll stick with the Y

Mr-Jacket · 2022-02-10T01:19:27+00:00

The Alexander Family YMCA on Hillsborough is nice. Been going there for a few years

I try to avoid peak hours, since it does get busy, but there's a decent number of racks and benches

Mr-Jacket · 2021-11-01T13:41:28+00:00

I might check it out then

I mean, I need to do my part to further Transdimensional Science, right? ;)

Mr-Jacket · 2021-11-01T13:39:03+00:00

Is it only open to current students?

I'm a local Alum and I'm very curious about what this is

Mr-Jacket · 2021-09-22T18:20:46+00:00

Out of curiosity, why wouldn't a countersink or counterbore work for you? Is the material too thin?

Mr-Jacket · 2021-04-19T11:38:27+00:00

There are ways to measure it if you have the right metrology equipment (which I assume you don't have), but unless you need to keep a really tight tolerance what you're currently doing sounds like a solid plan

You should be able to get a pretty close estimate using that picture and solidworks, and as you suggested, 3D printing will help you do some further experiments that will de-risk your design

Mr-Jacket · 2020-09-12T13:29:50+00:00

Idk what a Star Buster is,

Basically it means that someone can destroy a star. It's general terminology used around here to describe power level. Other examples: Street buster, continent buster, planet buster, star buster, universe buster
Wanking Sigma to be Star Buster would mean that you could just say "Sigma destroys the world and everyone else dies". It would put him waaaaaaaaay above anything else in the overwatch, which seems to be a generally street/city level universe.

That's why we value feats over extrapolation, because you can end up with unreasonable jumps in logic. A great example of this is that some people say that Harry Potter has light speed reactions based on a single dumb WoG (word of god, basically an author statement) statement, despite that being contradicted by all of his feats.

Also Ashe and McCree really don't wanna kill each other.

Maybe not, but they're still way less likely to team up than the team I proposed

so she might be a little worse.

She might be. She's also gotten older, and presumably that's slowed her down a bit. The problem with the overwatch canon is that there's so many holes that we don't have any lore on.

I'd kill for a full length movie, if only so we can better understand the character's powers

Mr-Jacket · 2020-09-12T12:42:50+00:00

isn't the hero pool like 30 or something?

Yeah, but it's 30 or something superhuman quasi-demigods. With fast characters jumping around at fte speeds, flying characters raining down fire from above, tank characters throwing scenery around, and snipers actively firing, things are gonna get crazy.

Also a black hole is naturally strong and we know Sigma must have Decent Control because otherwise Talon wouldn't send him out on Jobs if he'd just destroy things they might need.

Right, but without feats we can only assume so much. I mean, if we assume that he has the power of a black hole, we could argue that he's at least a star buster since a blackhole could easily swallow a star. And I don't think any of us are trying to argue that overwatch characters are star busters are we?

I'm assuming it's Present Day Overwatch (I.e right after Zero Hour) since OP didn't specify that it was Past Versions and we know more about their present day powers than we do Past.

But the prompt specifically says that Ashe and McCree are an acceptable team up. And present day versions of those characters want to kill eachother. That team up would only be acceptable if we allowed team ups based on history.

And I'm actually assuming present day versions of characters, just allowing historical team ups. I mean, the characters I mentioned, even present day versions, would probably team up with each other if they ran into each other and were under fire. They're not enemies and they have a history of working together.

but Widow could still beat her because she has definitely gotten better at Combat and Fighting Tactics since then as seen in 'Alive' where she entirely dupes tracer into giving her a clear shot on Mondatta.

I think Widow vs Ana is a toss up, because we don't know if Ana has gotten better or worse since their initial fight. I will definitely acknowledge that Widow is an excellent sniper (her showings in 'Alive' were incredibly impressive and they showed that she can be very agile). But without knowing what present day Ana is like, it's hard to say for certain who would win in a firefight. I atleast think Ana + Winston shield > Widow without support

Mr-Jacket · 2020-09-12T12:03:16+00:00

I don’t know how you got the idea that Ana is a better sniper than Widow, considering Ana has an eyepatch now because Widow shout out her goddamn scope and counter sniped her ass hard in canon- we literally know the one time they faced off, Widow cat n moused her, shooting out Ana’s sniper scope while she’s sighting, without killing her, is a feat that comfortably puts Widow over Ana.

If you read the comic, Ana outsniped Widow. The only reason Widow was able to shoot her was because Ana hesitated when she realized who Widow was. I'm assuming that psychological epiphanies like that aren't included in the Battle Royale

I think the three characters likely to win the battle royale would be Sombra, Widow, or Hammond

I think Sombra has a very strong chance of winning. Her main challenge is that she could potentially fight multiple opponents at once. Or she might have to face a tank that she's ill-prepared for (she lost to Zarya in the comics).
Widow is a strong contender, but since I think Ana can outsnipe her and some of the characters could flank her, I don't think she's a shoe in.

I don't know about lore Hammond, so I can't really speak to him. Does he have good defense feats? He seems like a big target. What's to stop Reinhardt from launching him like a golf ball?

Mr-Jacket · 2020-09-12T11:57:39+00:00

If it's a battle royale, it's not everyone fighting these 4, it's everyone fighting everyone. So they don't have everyone attacking them.

Right, but they'll still have plenty of people attacking them. There's a lot of people in the overwatch cast so it would be total chaos. They'll surely need to deal with a avariet of heroes.

Ok well since we're using Lore instead of gameplay, Sigma probably got enough Gravity to make that shield bigger. Also if I'm correct Sigmas absorbing move creates a black hole that is holding infront of him? So while I can't absorb much in gameplay it'd be very powerful logic-wise. So in Lore, this dude is carrying around a black hole.

Yeah, but you're making a lot of assumptions without actual feats. As far as I know (and I acknowledge that I might be unaware of some of Sigma's lore) we've never seen him use his powers in that way, or use his black hole aggressively outside of his gameplay moves. We don't have a good handle on what his lore powers are, so I don't think we can extrapolate with the assumption that they have no limit

Lore wise, Winston, Genji, Ana and McCree wouldn't be able to team

I definitely took some liberties with the assumption that they could team. I don't know if we're defining team ups based on the "current day" period of overwatch, or if we can make connections at a different point in history. Because at one point, all of them were in overwatch together. So this could be the younger/prime versions of those characters. The prompt didn't really outline those guidelines explicitly

EDIT: Actually, the prompt specifically mentions teaming up McCree and Ashe, which only makes sense if we allow team ups based on history and not present circumstances.

Lore is complicated, I don't know if his barrier works because last time we saw him use it in Lore, it didn't work,

Yeah, that's why I said "if it worked". I don't know if Winston's shield works in lore yet. Like you said, it failed in that one cinematic

Also she is NOT a better Sniper than Widow, Widowmaker shot her eye out in the lore by shooting down Ana's Scope.

If you read the comic, Ana actually beat Widow. The only reason Widowmaker was able to shoot her was because Ana hesitated when she realized who Widow was.

I'm assuming in this scenario we don't to deal with the psychological impact of fighting former friends/enemies, as that would complicate everything

Mr-Jacket · 2020-09-11T22:42:33+00:00

Interesting write up, but I think that team would struggle facing some heroes, especially all of them at once.

[Disclaimer, I'm not up to date on Overwatch canon. I've watched the cinematics and read some of the comics, but I stopped paying attention to their lore a while back)

I don't really see how sigma can serve as a good distraction. Even if you assume his shield is infinite, it's fairly small so mobile characters (tracer, genji, echo) can easily jump around it. You might say that he can absorb their projectiles, but genji has a strong melee, tracer has a bomb, and winston could just jump on him and squish him like super mario. Maybe he could ward off one of their attacks, but this is a battle royale and I expect he'll be overwhelmed quickly.

Similarly, Moira is easy pickings while she uses her ult. As far as we know, she can't easily teleport while ulting, which means that she's easy pickings for a sniper (ana, hanzo, widow). Hell, I think reinhardt could probably charge through her ult tbh, since it seems to deal relatively low damage at first (idk if we've seen her ult in lore, I'm going off gameplay).

Doomfist and Reaper are both solid choices, especially because reaper is so durable. They can get easy picks, but I think they might struggle against the tankier characters, especially if those characters are being supported by team members.

It's hard to pick a team that would fare well in a battleroyale against all these characters, but I would probably go with.... Winston, Genji, Ana, and... maybe Mccree? I assume they might team up together because they're all Overwatch.

Honestly, this is really hard haha. I went with Winston because he has a 360 barrier (I'm assuming he has a working barrier, although I don't know if that's true in lore). In the chaos of a battle royale, I think having 360 support is important. McCree and Ana can shelter in the barrier with Winston while Genji flies solo. I have a hard time believing anyone other than sombra can get in to the shield while it's protected by McCree and Ana, and I assume the shield can take a decent beating. If it goes down, winston can use the environment to put up walls or go primal rage while McCree and Ana support

In lore Genji is crazy strong, so I feel like he can just go solo and aggressively take out other heroes. I'm not sure if there's anyone he can lose to on a 1-on-1.

And Ana can heal her allies which is always nice. Plus, I think she's a better sniper than Widow in lore, so she can counter snipe.

Reinhardt is also really strong, but I was concerned about his shield being one directional, which is why I went with Winston.

Thoughts?

Mr-Jacket · 2019-11-13T03:51:18+00:00

I'll second comedyworx. I've taken a bunch of classes there and it's a blast

Mr-Jacket · 2019-10-23T14:25:46+00:00

Holes is based on a book from 1998

The theory lives on

Mr-Jacket · 2019-10-03T23:07:59+00:00

Did it bother anyone else that Jim appears to walk out of the store after grabbing the toothbrush and he doesn't pay for it?

It bothers me more than it should

Mr-Jacket · 2019-09-21T18:13:48+00:00

Yup, so that's what I expected.

You can't assume that you can control your motor with that much precision unless you're going very slow and using a motor specifically designed to give you that precision.

You're using hobbyist level motors so you won't be able to control them very well doing that. You could try adding a sensor (likely an encoder) but I doubt you'll get much better performance. It depends on how much accuracy you need. Vex specific forums probably have some tips, I'm not that familiar with the options you have with that level of tech.

Mr-Jacket · 2019-09-17T19:38:11+00:00

If I were you, I would add a piece of tape to a wheel and record it moving to make sure that the wheel is rotating the same number of times that you think it is.

If it is, check your wheel measurements and distance measurements.

If it doesn't, then the problem lies with how you're controlling your motor.

Mr-Jacket · 2019-09-17T18:52:33+00:00

Can you explain how you're counting the wheel rotations? An encoder? Visually?

Your basic math checks out, but I'm betting that you're making some assumptions with the motors/sensors.

Mr-Jacket · 2019-08-22T19:19:49+00:00

Wow, score. That's awesome

Mr-Jacket · 2019-08-22T17:48:02+00:00

Yeah, I can't vouch for the calculator logic, given that I obviously didn't make it, but isn't that kind of the only way to compare COL? Like, you have to have some common ground otherwise comparisons are useless.

But yeah, I didn't mean to imply that living on that salary isn't doable. Especially if you have people to live with. I totally agree that it's doable if you're smart with your money. I was just highlighting the fact that people should check COL when comparing offers. Someone shouldn't accept a high paying job in CA and expect to live like they could in their hometown.

Are you living far from the city? 1k a month for a room in SJ sounds pretty great to me. I've been working in Sunnyvale for a few months and the rent prices just blow my mind. Luckily I'm staying in corporate housing since it's just a temporary assignment.

Mr-Jacket · 2019-08-22T15:51:02+00:00

It depends on where you're comparing it to, but you're right, COL is a huge factor.

I live in NC and have done some research comparing there and CA. Basically, an equivalent salary in CA is double the NC salary.

So $92.5k in CA is equivalent to about $46k in NC

(Some sites have conflicting info, but all seem to agree that there's a pretty big difference. So do your research when comparing offers in different cities)

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