Excellent example of a creative effort that even includes the physical satisfaction of building a physical object! Sometimes that makes it way more fun (motivating), and actually probably helps you learn and understand whatever you're doing more completely by involving another sense.
I think in general, there are too few people putting in the deep time that prepares them to be an engineer in their near future. You're practically there already: it will feel the same after perhaps you decide to call yourself a degreed "engineer" but you will have more mental tools, broader knowledge, confidence from having been able to make what you envision, understanding across disciplines. You have a lot to look forward to! As I told my kids: don't let imposter syndrome take hold of you for a moment! You are a rarity in any group.
Impressive work for someone of any age!
- any project that involves hardware or physical objects (especially ones you are manufacturing!) is impressive
- the craftsmanship
- references to established standards
- documentation
- actually publishing
As others have said here you can drop the “wannabe” tag (or don’t, we’re all wannabes at heart :))
Nice job and keep up the good work!
Anytime you can turn a deep personal interest, like designing and building this impressive gearbox, into something that lands you a paid gig somewhere, you have basically hacked the typical employment system and you should be happy and proud that you saved all the time and expense of a 4 year degree to get what you wanted in the first place.
Now, it remains to be seen if this project will land you a professional level paid job doing what you seem to love to do, so I think the whole "engineer" question is still up in the air.
Yes, anyone can call themselves an engineer but I believe, in the West at least, that until you graduate from an accredited University or have 3-4 solid professional industry experience, calling yourself an engineer might be considered premature.
V2 to V3 iteration was actually impressive regardless of age
What is it? Is this like a gear, where the output shaft turns at some fraction of the input shaft? Is better or worse than traditional toothed gears in some way?
It acts like a gearbox, allowing you to sacrifice rotational speed for higher torque output. What makes this gearbox type special is their low backlash, multiple points of contact, and high efficiency.
Might be worth adding that info to the README
:D Kids can do amazing things.
Adult engineers are already pretty bad at knowing with other people know and what's worth saying. This is the one area where students are markedly worse; "if I know it, everyone else must." Or just figuring out the important bit to explain.
Its been added!
They're pretty cool. They can be good in situations where you don't want any backlash and lots of torque. I believe they're very popular as actuators in robotics.
The cycloid you may not know you already have could often be found mounted under the chassis of vans and pickup trucks to compactly turn the takeup reel for the cable that lowers and raises the spare tire stowed underneath the vehicle.
The reel holds fast its position naturally when the cable is at any length, and allows a heavy truck tire to be lifted manually using the light-duty hand crank.
Notice in the Github animation that the visible rotor has nine lobes and the stator has 10 stations, this can be confirmed if you take a screenshot.
I think you can drop the wannabe label. Of course you have a long way to go and much to learn but I think you are already an engineer, just one at the very start of what might be a great career.
agree. Do you engineer software? Congrats, you're officially a software engineer :)
Start doing it for money, and you're officially a professional software engineer.
Make software that genuinely improves peoples lives (like the Linux kernel currently running the computer I'm typing these words on), and you can call yourself a good software engineer ^_^
There are places (eg Canada) where engineer is a protected title like lawyer or doctor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_en...
Yes but not a single software engineer or other engineer in my field has a professional engineer designation. It's not required to practice in most fields outside of civil/structural engineering.
It really depends on where you live and in some places that distinction does not matter. See for example https://www.canadianconsultingengineer.com/quebec-order-of-e...
The main qualification of one of the best electronics engineers I knew (UK) was Bachelor of Music.
Most of us in electronics in the 1970s in the UK had physics degrees I think. And when I moved sideways into software much later the physics background was eminently useful when modelling machinery and physical processes.
But I too have met engineers with music and also medical backgrounds. But that's all more than half a century ago, it seems that employers expect much more narrowly focussed qualifications these days.
Professional Engineer (P.E.) is the protected title in the US
"15 Year Old Wannabe" clearly differentiates him from any credentialed engineer.
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I'm Canadian as well and type this while wearing my ring, but I've come to accept that Americans use the term differently from Canadians and that's just fine. The Canadian definition is directly downstream of the Quebec bridge collapse, it's a pretty neat bit of Canadiana.
Just like writing favorite instead of favourite, while I'm here, I think the right thing to do is respect the customs of the country which welcomed me. It would be very ignorant of me to pretend I'm more of an engineer than my American colleagues with CS degrees.
Of course you can call yourself an engineer without formal training in the US. https://www.vice.com/en/article/man-fined-dollar500-for-crim... https://www.vice.com/en/article/oregon-unconstitutionally-fi...
I don't get the down voting. This dude is correct. An "engineer" is typical like a "doctor". Yes I also carry the "system engineer" with me, and yes I have university background, but it's far far away from any serious engineering what's usually done by computer people. I would also argue that an engineer more or less knows what he's doing and can predict the outcome. Most people I observe while they use a computer it's literally a monkey beating metal with flesh....
"Engineer" is a floating signifier and there's no reason to pretend it's anything otherwise in the US.
It's a protected title in several european countries but I've never seen enforced, despite myself being part of an officially sanctionned body of engineers.
Afaik claiming to have an MD (for obvious reasons) or a PhD would land you in hot water much, much faster, despite technically being exactly the same "offense"
Let's accept that engineering has 2 different uses and that's okay. If I tell people that I'm a civil engineer with nothing to show for it, it'd be as big of a problem like pretending to be an MD. For software engineering, however, you'd just be at the start of your career.
I think it's fine.
There's at least tens of people who aren't born in the USA.
OP is in the US where the term “Engineer” does not convey the person is certified or has professional training.
That doesn’t mean that certain professional engineering disciplines exist that are regulated in the US. Systems Engineer, Computer Enginner, etc are not in that realm.
In the US, engineering is regulated only where public safety is directly at stake. Most engineers work for companies that assume liability for their work.
Nice.
I'm an over-40 year old wannabe engineer too, except I didn't get as far as you on my little pet project: designing a 'universal' gear, based on professor Jack Phillips' work "General Spatial Involute Gearing." So far I can model the basic helicoids in Siemens NX, such that they touch along the ISA (Intermediate Screw Axis) which passes through the CDL (Center Distance Line) in between the gear axes. I have no clue how to proceed from there with actual involute teeth.
My idea is to at some point write an NX Open script/module, which takes in various parameters (like selecting the shaft/axes vectors; inputs ratio, pitch, etc.) and spits out something structured like my model.
Good luck with that. NX is such a pain to use compared to other alternatives (commercial and free/open source). NX Open being even more painful because it's basically 90% guesswork.
I love NX (10-12), it feels very intuitive to me and it's absolutely rock solid compared to Inventor, Solid Edge, and SolidWorks, and it seems like it could run performantly on a literal potato (currently an offline Windows Server 2022 qube with 8GB RAM and 2 vCPUs, no GPU passthrough).
If only it were free for minors to play with as a toy, beats Minecraft as a builder!
Version 10-12 is 10-ish years ago. They switched to yearmonth (e.g. 2604) release names long ago.
Let's just say things changed since then.
There is also a difference between intuitive and familiar.
I learned to CAD on Fusion 360 with no formal education and it just worked. I can use FreeCAD sufficiently well to be productive (it really has become better over the years). I tried OnShape and just started working. I like using OpenSCAD and CadQuery...
... but I still struggle to get spline extrusions to work in NX because you just have to know which buttons to press in which order.
You’ll certainly enjoy the “Not an Engineer” channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFJJkZm796I
"Degrees are expensive, just make stuff."
From the channel description. I love it!
you're not a wannabe! you're an engineer! you made something awesome. wishing you the best :).
He's probably American. So he's not engineer.
He's V8motoreer under the hood, a guy from the hood.
Note to the OP: Mechanical engineering textbooks that are two editions out of date are dirt cheap. If you can't afford them, email me and I'll send some.
Cool man, really nice project! Awesome that you built and documented the whole thing. Following to see what you build next.
Looks cool, but if you want people to judge your project on its merit, then don't post information about your age; it will make honest feedback difficult both for you and the sender.
PS: anyone who can keep their focus on a project for more than a few weeks and complete it can become a fine engineer so don't worry about that.
I feel the age here helps I’ve context for the feedback. like you aren’t going to recommend they go get a 5k worth piece of machinery or say this is absolutely amateur and is a simple concept and doesn’t deserve discussion
It's cool that OP is enthused by engineering, it's a cool little thing they made, and it's great that the next generation of mechanical engineers are starting out seeing software as a tool in their armoury. Those are the merits I can see here, and in my judgement they're all awesome.
try making something without AI too, it will be valuable
AI will be required to maintain the piles of tech crap we've built and that society now stands on. New generations are no longer as tech savvy, pushed toward being simple users and consumers. The rare individuals that develop curiosity for how things work have their work cutout and will need all the tools they can get to dig their way through layers of undocumented, organically grown software and hardware cruft left by "engineers" of lore.
Where do you think AI got its training material? Was it not from those very same "engineers of lore" and their respective "tech crap"?
Cool!
Hey, you should join Hack Club! I was just at an event where a high schooler designed and built a continuous variable transmission (https://outpost.hackclub.com).
You’ll meet a ton of interesting, friendly teens who are all helping each other build awesome projects.
Cool project!
(Hack Club is a nonprofit and I’m the founder of it)
I was actually looking to join hackclub, how should I approach it?
As a teenager that spent some time somewhat around Hack Club things, I felt that being a part of Hack Club pressured me to live live faster than I was ready to (like 16 year olds doing summer internships / cohabiting with their partners). I want to say a lot of the people I knew online on Hack Club Slack went to places like MIT, so I guess there's that, but there is some beauty in taking life more slowly. I also didn't want to be boxed into running my school's club with what Hack Club provided. I think they do good things (eg. Hack Club Bank helps students run events before they can financially) and I interacted with a lot of really cool people. But if it is anything like the past, I wanted to share this.
If you have any ideas on how we can better orient the community around self expression and self actualization, please email me!
It’s really important to me that Hack Club is a space that helps teens become the people they want to become vs. pressuring them down any one path.
zach@hackclub.com
I hope your username is not a spoiler for wind and truth. I’m about a third of the way through it.
Well, I made this account far before WaT ever existed, so....
Thanks!
You can just join their Slack workspace (it's a bit like Discord) on their website: https://slack.hackclub.com/ Then in the #announcements channel you'll see all the different projects they're running, just pick and choose the ones that interest you. I went to one of their meetups "Horizons Europa" last week and had a great time!
If you go to https://hackclub.com/programs, there are a bunch of things you can join right now! Another commenter mentioned it - but you should also join the Hack Club Slack at https://slack.hackclub.com
I took a look around hackclub, how should I approach starting an affiliated club?
Nice! Can it output SVG files for cutting w/ a CNC?
I do not believe so. It is a python script for autodesk fusion and I am not aware of any way to export SVG's from fusion.
CNC uses SVG? I am only familiar with 3d printers and assumed SVG would be too primitive and CNC would use STL or something like that?
Some of the CAM tools, esp. those oriented towards hobbyists will import an SVG --- Vectric Vcarve notably, and (ob. discl., I work for the company) Carbide Create.
Ages ago there was a Flash file, PartKam (also forked to MakerCAM) which used SVG as its native format.
You are on track ! at the age of 15 you building fantastic, just one word, "Keep Moving Sky is not the limit anymore"
I didn't even know what a cycloidal gearbox was! Good work—you've kicked off an exciting career.
Congrats! You are not a wannabe engineer, you are an engineer.
If you have the motivation to chase your passion to build these machines, you are already an engineer. Keep going!
> You are not a wannabe engineer, you are an engineer.
And never let anyone tell you otherwise.
Don’t listen to people telling you not to post your age on the internet. This is solid work and you did this instead of being stuck in one of the hundreds of +1 dopamine traps in Roblox or yelling at other (often times much younger) kids in Fortnite like many of your peers did.
You did something meaningful, you even waited to share it with the world until version three, and you learned a ton doing it. Well done, dude!
There’s no need to put down others to raise up OP. We can praise merit in one pursuit without acting like we are objectively better than others for it. How folks choose to spend their time is a fundamental part of personal freedom.
I built this because I wanted a better way to use multiple AI models during development...
You are a very talented 15 year old engineer. Not a wannabe. Just getting a head start on the imposter syndrome!
Welcome to the club
you're an engineer by doing, whereas wannabes don't! very cool project
Seriously impressive, you should be proud of yourself! As another (software) engineer your age, being able to be creative is always a thing to be happy about.
it is pretty cool, but posting your age + an (likely) AI project on hacker news is probably a bad idea.
What is it?
It acts like a gearbox, allowing you to sacrifice rotational speed for higher torque output. What makes this gearbox type special is their low backlash, multiple points of contact, and high efficiency. It is also unique for not having any teeth and just working due to its specific cycloidal geometry.
Great project! Keep pushing, do not pay attention to anyone saying that AI will replace all software engineers.
Nice work!
Nice work! Great to see you’re having fun with the projects. As we get older we focus on being productive. Never lose the creativity!
wannabe? there isn't a guild, or a test, its a choice.
FYI - There literally are guilds in some countries regulating who can use the title engineer.
Although they prefer „chambers“ as a name these days.
Being pedantic, in many countries, engineering disciplines are regulated and you can’t officially call yourself an engineer until you’ve complied with some requirements etc.
So there’s kind of a guild in many places.
Don't post your age on the internet :)
Project looks cool
This is a technical forum. One of the best traditions in engineering has always been taking beginners seriously and helping people who are trying to learn. Most of us are here because someone did the same for us. You come from a good place but I don't see why say a tech forum is a place you need to hide.
100% this. My favourite new colleague is an intern. Why? Because watching them grow just like I once did is worth every penny.
(Ps: yes, I'd rather have two passionate, eager interns under my wings than one burnt-out senior by my side.)
Those saying it's fine come from a good place. I come from a world where we see young people groomed, pursued and manipulated. There is no serious reason to posting your age as a minor on an adult forum.
Brothers think alike ;)
It's crazy that in 2018 a cellular automata written in JS by a 12 year old was considered special (which it is) and today, nobody would even bat an eye because you can just vibe code this without effort.
It would still be impressive if it wasn't vibe coded.
Hold up, are you the type of person wanting to fire software teams because we can just ask the Product Owner to vibe code the new features?
No, I think the bar is just too high nowdays.
The projects I built as teenager spending weeks, it's just would take half hour of vibecoding now.
I'm going through this. It's demoralizing. I want to spend weeks coding something cool. The idea of asking an AI to do it in 30 minutes is like... what's even the point. I know I can, so why bother. I'd rather go get a beer.
It's like getting all the cheat codes and then the game isn't fun anymore.
You learn much more by doing the actual grunt work. Some people enjoy learning for the sake of learning.
We can learn assembly even though compilers exist. We can learn OpenGL even though 3D engines exist. We can learn to write a relational database even though SQLite/MariaDB/Postgres exist. Et cetera.
You can also play games for which you have all the cheat codes and simply choose to not use them.
Instead of spending weeks building a new wall in your house, you spend a week building a new house. With AI mundane problems are solved easily and effectively, giving you time to go bigger.
Be more ambitious, there are projects that take months even with frontier agents
I get the most satisfaction out of building small solutions that work really well. Problems that are beyond the scope of an individual to solve are not really as motivating. At that point you are just one of a group who slings code at the problem and hopes some of it sticks.
If you place enough bricks you will behold a castle
Exactly. Or you can go physical and do some HW+SW project, there is no AI (yet) for the physical world, at least at a price point for hobbyists. Although you can already go a long way 3D-printing
> Hold up, are you the type of person wanting to fire software teams because we can just ask the Product Owner to vibe code the new features?
No, and I don't even know how you can even read this from my post.
> nobody would even bat an eye because you can just vibe code this without effort.
To me, this is implying that software engineering in 2026 is less impressive than 10 years ago because "you can just vibe code this without effort". Having used AI a fair bit for both business and pleasure I can assure you that you can't always "just vibe code" something useful. Discrediting software engineering because a power tool was popularized in the field is... eh. I don't agree with that.
It sounded like you thought that with AI anyone, even children, can solve literally any problem with ease and therefore it's not very impressive (...and "perhaps we don't need 20+ software engineers building that app if 5 can do it with AI").
Why not?
There is a lack of project justification documents, need a CAPEX proposal and what is the expected ROI? /s
In a serious note, looks good and don't let the paperwork keep you down!
cycloidal designs are a great thing to have actually built rather than just read about. the eccentric motion is easy to follow on paper and then surprisingly fiddly once real tolerances show up.
two things worth measuring if you have not: backlash, and how much it changes after a few hundred cycles. cycloidal drives are usually sold on low backlash, so knowing your real number turns this from a nice print into something you can quote a spec for. if you have a way to load the output shaft, efficiency under load is the other number people will ask about.