A big part of Jackson's undergraduate experience at SDSU has been the student chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He had no idea what a huge impact the student chapter would have on him when he attended his first General Body Meeting his freshman year. While he was there, he hesitantly got involved with the Human Powered Vehicle Competition (HPVC) and ended up helping design and manufacture a recumbent bicycle. Once the team finished manufacturing the bike, they traveled to Pomona, CA to compete against other universities. The competition helped Jackson get even more CAD experience after two solid modeling courses, helping him to stand out from the crowd and allowing him to land his first internship at MircroVention Terumo the summer after his freshman year. The following fall, he was initiated into the engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi and served as ASME's Manufacturing Lead for the HPVC team. He learned a lot about workholding, tolerancing, and machining before the competition (and virtually everything else) was canceled because of COVID. That summer Jackson was fortunate enough to get an internship at DZYNE Technologies by utilizing his network - a great benefit of ASME - where he was exposed to advanced additive manufacturing processes for the first time. That internship ended up being life-changing and he would return the following summer. Jackson's third year was entirely virtual, but he was still able to make the most of it. He continued to be active in Tau Beta Pi, got a cat, and finished up his core engineering classes. Some of his favorites were Materials, Thermodynamics, and Introduction to Design. He also served as the Chief Engineer of the HPVC team that year. There was no in-person competition, but he led a small team through the design and manufacturing stages of the project while obeying COVID guidelines. This year he is serving as the Vice President of ASME and continues to be active in Tau Beta Pi. Most of his courses are related to his senior design project or are upper division ME electives. His senior project is sponsored by the medical device company Masimo. He and his team are designing and fabricating an automatic wiping system that will allow Masimo engineers to test their products for wear. The system will control the amount of cleaning solution and force applied to the object while wiping the object for tens of thousands of cycles, simulating what the devices will experience in a hospital environment. Jackson's upper division electives include Fundamentals of Manufacturing, Powder Based Manufacturing, and Scalable Manufacturing. By now it should be no surprise that he is interested in manufacturing! He will be graduating this spring (Summa Cum Laude) and will receive the "Outstanding Graduate of the Department of Mechanical Engineering" award at commencement. However, last year he decided that he is not quite done with school. He knows there is a lot more he can learn and loves a good challenge, so he will pursue a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. He started the application process last spring and applied to eight schools in the fall. He recently committed to Purdue and will be working in a great ME department under Dr. Shin, who is well known for his work in laser additive manufacturing. Jackson is excited and honored to get into such an outstanding program and truly believes that he could not have done it without the support and opportunities provided by the Mechanical Engineering Department at SDSU.
Spring 2022 Outstanding Graduate: Jackson Cruise
April 29, 2022
