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April Hardware Roundup

Welcome to another month of the Fictiv Hardware Roundup, where we share interesting news, education, events, and opportunities from the hardware ecosystem. I’m dying to know what you think about the Roundup thus far—what articles you’d like to see more of, less of, or any additional sections you think we should add. Respond to this […]

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Advanced Technologies Exploration: Direct Metal Laser Sintering

There are lots of different exciting advances in prototyping and machining technologies on the horizon. For this article we’re going to take a deeper look at one advanced technology we hear a lot of buzz around: Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS). Read on for an overview of the method, the technical specs, and our views […]

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The Great Robotic Vacuum Showdown Part 1: Roomba 650 — Navigation System

In the first part of our Roomba teardown, we looked at the components that allow Roomba to move around and suck up dirt. Now we’re going to see what allows Roomba to actually navigate around your room semi-intelligently. The first sensor is actually a mechanical component—the small caster wheel found on the bottom of the […]

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Design and Sourcing Considerations for Springs

Springs are absolutely everywhere, from jewelry clasps to large industrial robots. The probability of a fresh-out-of-school mechanical engineer encountering his or her first spring design problem within the first year of graduating is not 100%, but it’s pretty high. Most of the time, it’s not practical to go straight into making a custom spring in […]

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The Engineer’s Guide to Small Scale AC vs. DC Motors

While electric motors drive vastly different applications, their core function remains the same—to convert electrical energy into mechanical energy. Numerous articles highlight the characteristics of each unique motor on the market, but they can be simplified into two overarching categories: AC (alternating current) motors and DC (direct current) motors. Each type has its own pros […]

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Holy FBD, Batman! Using Engineering Analysis to Improve Your Designs

A new engineer, I was getting used to the “excitement” of cubicle life when something (finally) happened. We’d stiffened part of our flow meters a month prior, and one of our customers started complaining about breakage. The graybeards upstairs were defending the change, while my engineering partner was struggling to explain why the minor tweak […]

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Celebrating the Women at Fictiv for International Women’s Day

In celebration of International Women’s Day today, we want to honor the amazing and inspiring women across the Fictiv team, each helping to make hardware more efficient everyday. International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the achievements of women, and a call to action for gender parity. Learn a bit about the women powering […]

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Hardware Sessions: Waterproofing & Reliability Testing with Hind Hobeika of Instabeat

To gain actionable insights on how real hardware products are developed and manufactured, we interviewed top engineers and designers in the San Francisco Bay Area in our Hardware Sessions series. In this edition of Hardware Sessions, we sit down with Hind Hobeika, a mechanical engineer and founder of Instabeat, a connected accessory for swimming goggles […]

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Design for (Lean) Manufacturing

What is lean manufacturing? How do you design for lean manufacturing? And how does it apply to your product development cycle? The idea and practices of lean manufacturing grew from auto manufacturing—Henry Ford and then Taiichi Ohno (of Toyota) were the pioneers of lean manufacturing. Its roots go back decades, but lean methodologies and lean […]

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8 Tips to Maximize the Impact of Your Prototypes

You just finished the initial design of your product, and it looks great! Well, it looks great on your computer screen. So, you decide to make a prototype and see if your design looks and works as intended in real life. Odds are that the first prototype won’t meet all of your expectations. In fact, […]