Jordan PraxEngineering Portfolio

Jordan PraxMechanical Engineer

Come take a look at what I've been working on.

I've spent the last few years designing, building, testing, and occasionally breaking things. Here's some of the work I'm proud of, plus a little about how I go about engineering.

I like physical products: mechanisms, prototypes, test fixtures, and anything where the answer has to hold up on real hardware.

Now
SiemensMechanical Engineer · Design-to-Order
Before
John DeereContract engineer through RFA EngineeringProduct Engineer · Mechanical Engineer 2
See the highlightsAll projects

01Now

What I'm working on now

More on my current work

Most of my day-to-day work at Siemens is proprietary, so this stays high-level. Here's the shape of it.

  • Siemens · Mechanical Engineering · Design-to-Order

    Switchgear, moving to the U.S.

    Mechanical engineering on medium-voltage switchgear that's moving into U.S. manufacturing: customer-specific NX design changes, packaging and layout, and helping set up how engineering works for the new operation.

  • Siemens · Internal engineering tool

    Part-number reservation tool

    30 → 5 mintypical reservation time

    Parts get reserved constantly in Design-to-Order work. An Excel tool I built automates much of the repetitive part, and typical reservation time went from roughly 30 minutes to roughly 5.

  • Siemens · Internal tool · In progress

    Engineering knowledge agent

    An internal tool to help engineers learn the product, find information, and stay on the same page as the U.S. team grows. Still in development.

02Approach

How I approach engineering

I like having a process. Not because projects follow it perfectly, but because a structured process gives me a way to make good decisions when the problem gets complicated.

My education was built around engineering design: requirements, brainstorming, concept development, decision matrices, analysis, prototyping, testing, and iteration. I still work that way. Each stage below links to where it happened on a real project.

The process is structured. The path through it usually isn't.

  1. 01

    Understand

    the people and the problem

    We learned the student loved playing with large LEGO-style blocks, so the instrument was designed around that instead of around a conventional instrument.

    Adaptive instrument

  2. 02

    Define

    requirements and constraints

    Hold a height setting through real use, let the caster swivel freely, stay easy for an operator to change, and support mowing under low obstacles like solar panels and fences.

    Height-of-cut mechanism

  3. 03

    Explore

    more than one concept

    Everyone on the bike team brought their own vehicle concept from the previous semester, so we started with several complete designs, not one.

    Adaptive bicycle

  4. 04

    Evaluate

    decide with evidence

    A weighted decision matrix, weighted by what mattered most to the client. Concept A scored highest, and we still carried the strongest subsystems from every concept into the final design.

    Adaptive bicycle

  5. 05

    Build

    something you can measure

    A load cell calibrated on a hanging-load rig, then a rigid bench fixture designed in CAD so the sensor sits in the real force path.

    Knee traction

  6. 06

    Test

    against criteria set up front

    Shop checks, overextension with an impact tool, curb impacts recorded with an accelerometer and camera, and field use, against test plans and acceptance criteria set with the test engineers.

    Height-of-cut mechanism

07

Iterate

go back as far as the evidence says

  • Test03 Explore

    Buttons needed a precise press to trigger reliably. We went back to concepts and switched to light sensing, so placing a block is enough.

    Adaptive instrument

  • Test02 Define

    The client sat on the alpha prototype and told us what worked and what didn't. His feedback changed features, materials, and dimensions for the beta.

    Adaptive bicycle

  • Build03 Explore

    Partway through building the first bench fixture, it no longer represented the system I wanted to test. I stopped before testing it and went back to CAD.

    Knee traction

03Highlights

A few things I'm proud of

All projects

A patented mechanism now in production on a John Deere commercial mower, a knee-traction prototype I'm developing on my own, and two university team projects: an adaptive bicycle and a musical instrument, each designed around one specific person.

Patent line drawing of the height-of-cut mechanism in exploded view: from top, a ribbed cap, a perforated locking plate with two pins, a ribbed handle, a snap ring, a long threaded screw, an outer cylinder with a square mounting tube and a bent mounting arm with bolts, an inner cylinder, bushings, a small connector screw, a shaft with height markings, a caster yoke, and a caster wheel.

US 12,635,602 B2

  • Patented
  • In production

A height-of-cut mechanism now on the John Deere Z998R

On John Deere's turf-care engineering team (as a contract engineer through RFA Engineering), I came up with this mechanism and was its primary designer. I'm a named co-inventor on the patent. The core idea is keeping two motions separate: the cut height locks, and the caster still swivels. Getting it to production took CAD and GD&T, tolerance stacks, FMEA, prototypes that broke or stuck, and weekly work with the supplier who builds it.

How it went from idea to production
  • Overhead view of the built fixture on a cutting mat inside an aluminum extrusion frame. A stepper motor with a white printed spool sits in a black L-bracket; the bracket is bolted to a white printed adapter, then a silver S-shaped load cell, then a second white printed adapter fixed to the extrusion. A braided cord runs from the spool up the length of the frame.

    Electromechanicalmotor · load cell · embedded control

    Personal project · bench-tested

    Knee traction prototype

    My own electromechanical project: a motor, a cable, and a load cell meant to apply a controlled pull at the knee. Right now it's a bench fixture, not a wearable. The controller stopped the motor when measured tension hit a set 5 lb limit, and along the way it failed in two different ways, which is where most of the learning came from. No human testing.

    What's been demonstrated so far
  • Side view of the finished three-wheeled vehicle in a workshop: steel tube frame, a seat with a short back, a rear basket, foot pedals mid-frame, and a raised hand crank with a chain to the front wheel.

    Client-drivenhuman-centered design

    University team project · team of nine

    Adaptive bicycle

    A three-wheeled, hand- and foot-powered vehicle designed around one rider's abilities and goals. He sat on our alpha prototype and told us what worked and what didn't, and that drove the beta build. I took the lead on prototyping. He chose our design as his final vehicle.

    How the client shaped it
  • A light-blue square platform covered in a grid of large round blue studs, with a yellow block and a blue block placed on top. The platform sits on a workbench.

    Human-centereddesigned around how the user plays

    University team project · proof of concept

    Adaptive musical instrument

    An instrument for an elementary-school student with a disability, played by placing big LEGO-style blocks on a platform. Buttons asked for too much precision, so we switched to light sensing. I worked across the mechanical design, C++, assembly, and testing.

    Designing around the user

Also written up: Shell Eco-Marathon, a two-year vehicle capstone, from a MATLAB/Simulink model to the drivetrain.

Not written up yet: Porsche 944

04Experience

Where I've done this for a living

Experience

  1. Now

    Siemens

    Apr 2025 – present

    Mechanical Engineer · Design-to-Order

    Design-to-Order mechanical engineering on medium-voltage switchgear, and helping define how engineering works as the product moves into U.S. manufacturing.

    I'm helping define the engineering process while using it.

    The full picture

  2. Before

    John Deere

    Contract engineer through RFA Engineering

    Mar 2022 – Apr 2025

    Product Engineer · Mechanical Engineer 2

    R&D and product design for John Deere Turf Care, taking products from concept to production. The height-of-cut mechanism is the clearest example: I went from talking with customers and gathering requirements to a patented design that now ships on the Z998R.

    The parts I designed there ran the range: sheet metal, machined, injection molded, compression molded, cast iron, investment cast, weldments, and assemblies.

    Z998R Height-of-Cut MechanismZ998R on deere.com

05Off the clock

Outside of work, I'm usually outside.

Mountain biking, hiking, camping, and flying my drone to get a better look at wherever I ended up. There's usually another project going on the side, too. The knee-traction prototype started that way.

See something interesting? Ask me about it.

There's a lot more behind these projects than I can fit on a website. I'm happy to talk through the decisions, the failures, the testing, or what I'd do differently next time.