B.S. MECHANICAL ENGINEERING — CLASS OF 2027
JACOB PALKO
Senior at UNC Charlotte building mechanisms that survive contact with reality — drivetrains, structures, and test rigs taken from sketch to shop floor.
FIG. 01 — HIGH-BYPASS TURBOFAN, EXPLODED VIEW.
EVERY PRODUCT SHIPS AS A DRAWING FIRST.
SCOPE OF WORK
I'm a mechanical engineering senior at UNC Charlotte who treats every problem like a drawing: define the geometry, state the loads, tolerance the result.
My work lives where design intent meets manufacturing reality — mechanism synthesis, FEA-driven iteration, and prototypes machined and assembled by hand. I care about drawings a machinist never has to call about, and analyses that hold up under test data.
Currently: finishing my capstone, seeking full-time mechanical design roles starting May 2027.
PROJECTS
CAD / FEA
INTERNSHIPS
CERTIFICATIONS
SELECTED PROJECTS
Baja SAE Drivetrain
Redesign of the CVT to wheel-hub chain path. Static and fatigue loading cases on shafts, 11% mass reduction, and a chain tensioner that survived 4 hours of durability testing.
FSAE Upright Study
Topology optimization of an aluminum upright under combined braking and cornering loads. 31% stiffness-to-mass gain over the baseline, verified against a nonlinear FEA solution.
Heat Exchanger Rig
Instrumented test rig for a compact plate exchanger: thermocouple array, flow loop, and a LabVIEW DAQ pipeline. Measured effectiveness within 4% of ε-NTU prediction.
4-DOF Robotic Arm
Desktop-scale arm from first principles: DH-parameter kinematics, closed-loop joint control on custom driver boards, and printed planetary gearboxes at every joint. Repeatable to ±0.6 mm.
EXPERIENCE LOG
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2026 — PRESENT
SENIOR DESIGN CAPSTONE — MEGR 4990
UNC CHARLOTTE · WILLIAM STATES LEE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERINGTwo-semester industry-sponsored project. Requirements, concept trades, detailed design, and a validated prototype delivered to sponsor spec.
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2025
MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING INTERN
[COMPANY NAME] · CHARLOTTE, NCSupported fixture design and process improvement on CNC lines. Authored 20+ released drawings to ASME Y14.5 and cut setup time on two recurring jobs.
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2024
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT
UNC CHARLOTTE · [LAB NAME]Built and instrumented test fixtures for graduate research; owned CAD, machining, and test-day data collection.
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2023
MACHINING LAB ASSISTANT
UNC CHARLOTTE · EPIC FACILITYSupervised safe operation of manual mills, lathes, and CNC equipment; certified students on shop processes.
INTERFACE
LET'S BUILD
SOMETHING REAL.
Open to full-time mechanical design roles, and always open to talking shop about mechanisms, manufacturing, or racing.