Lucas Pagni

PORTFOLIO
Manufacturing and Design
Engineering Student

Northwestern University
 THE COPENHAGEN CHAIR
From August to December of 2019, I took business and design classes in Denmark
through the DIS Copenhagen program. In a furniture design class that I took, I first
learned about Danish furniture, then designed a chair, and finally manufactured the
chair I had designed in a woodshop.

The chair I designed and built was heavily influenced by the modern Danish furniture
designer Poul Kjærholm, who frequently incorporated woven patterns into chairs. The
chair is supported by a sleek matte black aluminum base. I designed this chair to be
used either at a desk while doing work or alongside a coffee table while relaxing and
reading a book. My chair is made from an ash veneer base and has green paracord
woven around the top bar and holes that I drilled below that opening in the back. The
paracord helps conform to the user’s back and provide them added support.

Pictures from the Chair-Making Process

Final Chair Design

The building process

and previous design
iterations
EASY FEEDER [SOLIDWORKS]

The Easy Feeder began as a project in a class where three other students and I
were paired with a client who tasked us with finding a way to strengthen the sucking
mechanism for babies with low suck reflex. After having multiples meetings with the
lactation consultant and mother with babies who are affected by this condition, we
developed a solution.

The Easy Feeder is composed of a molded silicone top-piece that sits on a large plastic
syringe with a dispenser tip. This device allows babies to suck at their own pace to train
their sucking mechanism but also gives caretakers the ability to increase the flow of
liquids if the baby is struggling. The Easy Feeder is simple to construct and simple to
sterilize between uses. While our budget did not allow us to mold the top piece out of
silicone, a prototype top piece was 3D printed using a flexible filament to demonstrate
how the product would function. A teammate and I are currently exploring options for
patenting this product.

Easy Feeder Model and Prototype

DETERGENT BOTTLE [SOLIDWORKS]
This detergent bottle was designed for an advanced Solidworks class. I was given cross-
sectional sketches of a Tide detergent bottle and asked to reconstruct it. Since the bottle
is composed of many organic curves, I was able to develop my skills using mainly surface
lofts and boundary surfaces to construct the general shape.

The general shape of the bottle required a good amount of preparation to accurately
reflect the cross-sectional sketches but was fairly easy to edit since my original surface loft
was very robust. The details, such as the cut-away section in the front and the indented
Tide logo required some problem solving to execute. After testing many surfacing
techniques, I finally managed to incorporate them properly.

Tide Detergent Bottle with Cross Section

BRACKET [SOLIDWORKS]
This bracket project was assigned in a mechanical engineering class and tasked each
group with designing a bracket with size restrictions that could withstand a load of at
least 2000N but would uniformly fail if a force of more than 2500N was applied. My
group performed an initial stress analysis and the results led us to design a bracket
composed of two U-shaped members that cradled each other in the area where the
force was to be applied.

After the manufacturing of the first design was completed, the bracket was tested
and withstood a force of 1600N before failing in every mode almost uniformly. Upon
designing, manufacturing, and testing the second iteration of the design, the bracket
was found to be able to withstand a force of 2160N before failing uniformly. Working
through the design process for this project helped me learn that optimizing performance
of a mechanical design requires many rounds of designing, prototyping, and testing.

Constructed Bracket with Technical Drawings

TOOTHBRUSH [SOLIDWORKS]
This toothbrush was designed for an advanced Solidworks class. In this assignment, I
was given the top view and side view of an existing toothbrush and asked to recreate
it in Solidworks. Additionally, since toothbrush was to be designed for overmolding the
internal geometry of the toothbrush handle needed to reflect this design intent.

To construct this toothbrush, I employed both solid modeling and surface modeling
techniques. The main body of the brush was created using a series of lofts and then
split into different parts. While the form is fairly simple, making the elegant curves
of the toothbrush required a great deal of refinement. The ridges of the toothbrush
were created with a series of offset surfaces to make retroactive editing simple.

Overmolded Toothbrush with Exploded View

ASSEMBLED UNICYCLE [NX 11.0]
This unicycle was built for a Mechanical Engineering class. The project entailed designing
a unicycle around a given fork and axle; every other component on the unicycle, from the
wheel to the pins connecting the seat to the fork, was designed independently. Designing
the various components of the unicycle with very few limitations allowed for a great deal
of freedom of design choices. I also enjoyed designing the more organic components,
such as the seat and the pedals.

3D Dodel and Technical Drawing of Unicycle

CONVERSE AD CAMPAIGN
The Converse Ad Campaign is a series of ad spots designed as an independent project
for a graphic design class. Converse All-Stars are some of the most easily recognizable
shoes and I wanted to make the shape of the iconic shoe the focus of each image.

The context of the shoes in the posters are meant to evoke an active, urban feeling but
each image is intended for a unique location. For example, the bowling poster at the
bottom is designed for horizontal ad spaces like those available in public transportation
and the square image with cinder blocks is meant to be printed as a sticker. ​​​​​​

Compilation of Converse Posters