Mechanical Engineering Personal Statementfor Imperial

Outside formal education, I wanted to test these ideas directly, so I built a project for my school engineering club and entered it into the Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Competition. I investigated how closely simple beam theory predicts the behaviour of 3D-printed cantilever beams. Using Fusion 360, I designed identical PLA specimens and printed them with different layer orientations. I then clamped each beam, added masses at a fixed distance, measured deflection with digital calipers, and compared the results with values I calculated in Python using the Euler-Bernoulli beam equation. The model gave me a useful baseline because it predicts how deflection varies with load and flexural rigidity, but it also assumes a much simpler material than a printed polymer actually is. Beams loaded across the layer lines failed earlier and showed more scatter than the calculation suggested. That made me focus less on whether the theory was 'right' and more on where its assumptions stopped matching the material. Working part-time in a cycle repair shop has reinforced the same lesson. Components are not judged only by the maximum load they can survive once; wear, fatigue and ease of replacement affect whether a design is durable in use. That has made me want to study mechanics, materials and structures in greater depth, particularly how engineers make sound decisions about failure, reliability and design trade-offs when real use does not behave as neatly as a model would like.