Product designer finds engineers’ playground in Wisconsin

As the youngest of 4 girls, Rosalie Phillips ’21 looked up to her sisters, and everyplace they went, she went. As aboriginal arsenic 5th grade, she recalls, she was joining her oldest sister astatine robotics meetings successful the instrumentality store of a section college, Case Western Reserve University successful Cleveland, Ohio. 

“They would manus maine a drill and amusement maine wherever holes needed to go, springiness maine a screwdriver to assistance assemble pieces, and amusement maine however the antithetic components they were gathering worked together,” says Phillips, who got a batch of Rosie the Riveter comments arsenic she continued to prosecute robotics successful precocious school. “I decidedly mention that arsenic the opening of my lifelong emotion of gathering things and, successful turn, the tools and machines that marque gathering things possible.” 

That passionateness brought Phillips to MIT, wherever she discovered merchandise design, and from determination to a occupation arsenic a decorator for the nation’s largest supplier of cordless powerfulness tools, Milwaukee Tool. 

Her clip astatine the Wisconsin-based institution started done a monthlong internship during her junior-year Independent Activities Period (IAP) arsenic portion of MIT’s Micro-Internship Program, wherever she was capable to summation invaluable acquisition moving straight with and for MIT alumni.

“I worked successful the precocious engineering group, and I worked connected processing an accessory for an electrical commercialized instrumentality that was focused on, arsenic our products thin to be, improving the ratio of a communal task repeated passim the time for electricians,” explains Phillips, who earned her undergraduate grade successful Course 2-A—a customizable way successful mechanical engineering that allowed her to instrumentality a heavy dive into merchandise design. 

The champion portion of the January 2020 micro-internship, she says, is that she came distant with a prototype successful hand: “The process of creating the prototype started with putting myself successful the users’ shoes, experiencing what they are presently doing connected the jobsite and what the symptom points of that process are.” 

“I conscionable emotion the feeling I get erstwhile I clasp thing I designed oregon made successful my hands for the archetypal time. It’s a large portion of the crushed I became an engineer.”

Once Phillips understood what occurrence would look like, she began brainstorming astir however to get there. “After I had my champion conception selected, I began to iterate and problem-solve,” she says. “Milwaukee has large onsite accelerated prototyping resources, and I was capable to plan a conception and person a high-fidelity 3D people successful manus a time oregon 2 aboriginal to trial everything from entree to ergonomics to fit. It was an astonishing hands-on acquisition surrounded by each the resources to prototype you could inquire for—definitely an engineer’s playground.” 

The occurrence of the IAP internship motivated Phillips to motion connected for a afloat internship astatine Milwaukee Tool successful the summertime of 2020, erstwhile she got to enactment connected a prototype for a carpentry powerfulness tool. That was intimately followed by a full-time occupation offer. She started successful September 2021. One happening that drew her to the institution was the operation of merchandise plan cycle, and the information that each idiosyncratic owned a task alternatively than contributing to aggregate larger projects. 

“I conscionable emotion the feeling I get erstwhile I clasp thing I designed oregon made successful my hands for the archetypal time. It’s a large portion of the crushed I became an engineer,” says Phillips. “I consciousness amazed I was capable to bring thing from my encephalon into the world, excited to trial it out, funny if it volition break, and already acceptable to marque the adjacent one.” 

The alumni advantage 

The conception of an IAP internship is not new. The MIT Alumni Association started the MIT Student/Alumni Externship Program successful 1997 arsenic a mode for alumni to big pupil interns during the January term. It was renamed the Micro-Internship Program upon being revamped aft transitioning to MIT Career Advising and Professional Development (CAPD) successful 2020. The programme inactive encourages MIT alumni to big undergraduate and postgraduate students astatine their companies, though students present besides person the accidental to use for positions not hosted by alumni.  

For her micro-internship, Phillips reported straight to Troy Thorson ’98 and collaborated with Beth Cholst ’16. She says being capable to enactment with not conscionable 1 but 2 chap Course 2 alums made her acquisition adjacent much valuable. 

“Troy would walk other clip with me,” says Phillips. She recalls that Thorson, who is simply a manager of precocious engineering, would give a luncheon interruption each week to taking isolated immoderate benignant of handheld powerfulness instrumentality to show however it worked, talking done what hiccups had travel up successful the plan process. “It made maine much excited to enactment there, due to the fact that I deliberation tools are interesting—the guts of tools are precise intriguing to me,” she says.  

Cholst—who is simply a manager of precocious engineering for outdoor powerfulness instrumentality specified arsenic leafage blowers and drawstring trimmers—started astatine Milwaukee Tool successful 2016 and has enjoyed the accidental to enactment with interns truthful overmuch that she is present successful complaint of recruiting astatine MIT. “I retrieve erstwhile Rosie archetypal started,” she recalls. “We gave her the archetypal task during IAP, and we weren’t adjacent definite it would beryllium imaginable to decorativeness it successful January. She did specified a large job. We knew we needed this idiosyncratic back—she had truthful overmuch passionateness and curiosity.” 

Making an interaction with tools 

Today, Phillips works connected powerfulness instrumentality merchandise improvement successful the company’s carpentry and nailers group—and 2 archetypal prototypes she developed person been picked up for further development, with 1 approaching motorboat this year. Although she has yet to execute that “ultimate satisfaction” of seeing 1 of her tools connected the support astatine a hardware store, she is close, she says. (The powerfulness instrumentality she worked connected during her summertime internship is besides astir acceptable to spell to market.)

In the meantime, she’s excited to beryllium moving astatine specified a well-known company. “If I’m wearing a Milwaukee Tool garment oregon jacket, radical halt maine and archer maine however they lone bargain Milwaukee, oregon the brainsick tasks they’ve enactment their tools through,” she says. “Experiences similar that truly support astatine the beforehand of your caput the radical who you are making these tools for, and the existent interaction it makes connected their time and livelihood to marque a instrumentality with the champion show imaginable that volition past for years.” 

Interested successful hosting an MIT pupil for a micro-internship? Email Tavi Sookhoo astatine tsookhoo@mit.edu oregon capable retired the signifier astatine bit.ly/MITMicroIntern. CAPD tin besides assistance alums funny successful seeking MIT endowment for summertime internships and full-time occupation opportunities. Learn much astatine bit.ly/HireMIT.