Internship- Mechanical Design & Integration

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Details

Preferred starting date: ASAP

Weekly availability: Full-time (5 days/week)

Period: 6 months

Location: Aerospace Innovation Hub, Delft, the Netherlands

About the company

Fiducial is a young but fast-growing deep-tech start-up with big ambitions at the frontier of autonomy, perception, and defence. Currently, we are developing software for advanced onboard UAV situational awareness in military applications. Using low-cost and widely available sensors and compute, our solutions are built for scalability. From there, we plan to develop a line-up of interconnected solutions to safeguard European safety.

Our team consists of engineers who are passionate about the technology and solutions they develop. The only time most of us are not thinking about the technology is when we are asleep, and sometimes even then. Our team members come from different backgrounds such as Aerospace Engineering, Computational Science and Engineering, Robotics, and Computer Graphics. Our office is located in the Aerospace Innovation Hub, a start-up hub on the TU Delft campus in the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering.

We work closely with top-tier partners, ranging from government agencies and prime contractors to academic research institutes and other start-ups. Our projects span from large tender orders in collaboration with partners to low-TRL research with government agencies. Whether through formal R&D programs or rapid prototyping tracks, we operate at the intersection of innovation and deployment.

The project

Sensor calibration is a manual job today, and it does not scale to the number of sensor units we intend to ship. We are building automated test and calibration infrastructure to fix that, starting with a cell built around a UFactory UF850 robotic arm on a linear rail.

We already have the arm and the calibration software. What we do not have is the physical cell around it, or the software that drives it. This first project is split into two internships that run side by side:

• Mechanical design and integration - this position
• Robot programming and automation - separate posting

The two interns will work closely together. Neither half of this project is any good on its own. This calibration cell is the first thing we are building on this front, not the last, so there is a good chance the right person carries on to other hardware and automation projects once it is running.

Your role

If you are the kind of person who likes designing hardware that has to actually work, who thinks in tolerances and stiffness rather than only in shapes, and who wants to see something you drew get built, measured, and used every week, this internship is designed for you.

We are looking for a Mechanical Design & Integration Intern to help design and build the physical hardware behind our robotic test and automation infrastructure. Your first project is a cell built around a robotic arm and linear rail - but the skills involved are the same ones we’ll lean on for whatever we automate next.

Good automated hardware has to satisfy a few things that pull against each other, and balancing them is the interesting part of this kind of work:

1. Modular. It has to accept different payloads and fixtures without a redesign each time. Swapping the item under test should take minutes, not a morning.

2. Movable. It has to relocate: between rooms, into a van, onto a test site and back again. It cannot be a bolted-to-the-floor installation.

3. Repeatable. Moving it must not destroy the geometry. If re-establishing it after transport requires a full re-survey every time, we have not solved the problem.

Resolving that tension is yours to do, on this project and on whatever comes after it.

This is not a desk-only internship. You will spend time at the CAD workstation, but also at the printers, at the bench with a caliper in your hand, and underneath the frame wondering why it flexes.

What you’ll do

• Design the structural base and frame that carry the arm and the linear rail, with the stiffness and stability to move reliably and repeatably.
• Design a modular payload interface: quick-change mounts for cameras, rigs, and targets, so swapping the item under test is fast and doesn’t require re-measuring.
• Work out how the target and the item under test need to be presented to each other, and design the fixturing that makes that possible.
• Make the cell genuinely mobile: it needs to relocate without losing its geometry, and get back up and running quickly wherever it lands.
• Manage vibration, cabling, and safety (E-stops, guarding, keep-out zones) so the cell is reliable and safe to run unattended.
• Build, source, and assemble what you design in our workshop, then measure and characterise how well it actually performs.
• Document your work: CAD, drawings, BOM, and SOPs, so the cell is easy to operate, maintain, and hand over.

Who you are

• You are enrolled in a relevant study program (Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics, Precision Engineering, Aerospace, Robotics, or similar).
• You are fluent in CAD. We care that you can design, not which package you learned it in.
• You think in tolerances, stiffness, and error budgets, not only in geometry.
• You have built physical things, and you have had them not work the first time.
• You are comfortable in a workshop: hand tools, drill press, 3D printers, soldering iron, and a caliper you trust.
• You have design-for-manufacture instincts. You know roughly what is cheap to make and what is not, and you ask before you find out the expensive way.
• You are comfortable taking responsibility for a piece of hardware that other people depend on.
• You are independent, curious, organized, and resourceful.
• Linux does not scare you. You will need to jog the arm and pull data yourself rather than waiting for someone to do it for you.

We care much more about what you have designed, built, broken, and fixed than about grades.

Nice to have

These are strong pluses, but not strict requirements:

• Precision mechanism or metrology experience: kinematic and quasi-kinematic mounts, flexures, alignment techniques, GD&T
• Linear motion experience: profile rails, ball screws, belt drives, gantries, and their real-world error behaviour
• FEA (static and modal) plus the judgement to know when running it is worth the time
• Machining or sheet-metal design experience, and experience talking to suppliers
• Vibration measurement and damping
• Machine safety and CE marking awareness (ISO 12100, ISO 10218, ISO/TS 15066)
• Cameras, optics, lighting, or photogrammetry background
• Basic Python, enough to command the arm and read a sensor without help
• Experience with robotic cells, test rigs, or automated test equipment

Please include

When applying, please include photos, drawings, renders, or links to things that show us you actually design and build. For example:

• CAD models and technical drawings
• photos of hardware you built, ideally next to the thing you designed it to do
• fixtures, jigs, or test rigs
• 3D-printed or machined parts, and what you learned making them
• competition or society projects (Formula Student, DUT Racing, rocketry, robotics teams)
• repairs, teardowns, and modifications
• anything that demonstrates hands-on technical ownership

If you have ever built a fixture, measured it, found it flexed far more than you expected, and redesigned it until it didn’t, you’ll probably fit right in.

Requirements

• Enrolled in a relevant study program (Mechanical, Mechatronics, Precision Engineering, Aerospace, Robotics, or similar)
• Solid CAD skills
• Basic Linux skills
• Strong interest in robotics, precision hardware, test automation, or perception systems
• English proficiency
• Organized and proactive working style

What we offer

• 1000 euro monthly compensation
• 10 vacation days during the internship period
• Flexible working hours and the option to work from home where practical, though this project mostly lives in the workshop
• A direct and significant influence on highly innovative products
• The opportunity to work close to the hardware and the product, with fast iteration and tight feedback loops
• Full ownership of a self-contained system that the rest of the company will depend on
• A team environment where practical experimentation, learning, and ownership are expected

The application procedure

• If after reading the above you are convinced you are the right person for the job, send us some information about yourself. This can be a resume, website, portfolio, or any other source that gives us a clear impression of your background, technical skills, and hands-on experience.
• We will get back to you ASAP. If we think you could be a fit for the position, we will invite you for an informal introduction so we can get to know you, and equally important, you can get to know us. After this, a more technically focused interview may follow.
• If at that point we believe you are the person we are looking for, we will discuss the specifics such as starting date and internship period.

Welcome to the team!