The problem, restated
Your problem in my words, with the constraints and success criteria pinned down — so we both know exactly what "solved" means before any concept is judged.
Mechanical engineering · Concept studies · Rapid prototyping · Switzerland
In 5 working days you get 3–4 genuinely different solution concepts — each with a sketch, the engineering rationale, the tradeoffs, and a clear recommendation. Fixed scope, flat fee, no strings.
The design review went in circles. The prototype failed the same way twice. The supplier says it can't be made, the deadline hasn't moved, and everyone on the team is now defending their own corner instead of attacking the problem.
What you need isn't another meeting. It's fresh eyes and genuinely different options — laid out honestly enough that you can pick one and move.
And it's not only stuck teams. Maybe you're a founder or an inventor with an idea that lives on a napkin — a product you believe in but no mechanical engineer in the room. You don't need a finished spec to start; a clear description of what you're trying to achieve is enough. I'll help turn it into concepts you can build, fund, or test.
That's the whole service. You send me the problem. I work it from first principles. Five working days later, you have a concept study on your desk — and if you want to keep going from there, so do I.
Not a slide deck of vague directions — a working document, built the way a good design review should run:
Your problem in my words, with the constraints and success criteria pinned down — so we both know exactly what "solved" means before any concept is judged.
Genuinely different routes to the goal, not variations on one idea. Each comes with a sketch, how it works, why it fits your constraints, and its maturity: proven, needs prototyping, or speculative.
Cost, complexity, manufacturability, risk — compared side by side in one table. The weaknesses are written down too. You're paying for judgement, not optimism.
Which concept I'd pursue, why, and the first concrete step to de-risk it. You leave with a decision you can defend, not homework.
If you want to take the chosen concept further, we can keep working together: detailed development of the design, rapid prototyping — from simple 3D-printed models and functional test pieces up to a full working prototype — and support through to validation. Each follow-on stage gets its own scope and quote, so you stay in control and only commit to what's worth committing to.
A short intake form: what you're trying to solve, the hard constraints, and — most valuable of all — what you've already tried. Drawings and photos welcome. Takes about 10 minutes.
Within one working day I confirm scope, timing and a flat fee, and we have a short kickoff call so I understand the problem the way you live it.
Five working days of first-principles concept work: research, sketching, rough sizing, sanity checks against your constraints. No status meetings — your time stays yours.
You get the concept study plus a call to walk through it, challenge it, and decide the next move. The flat-fee engagement is complete here — no strings.
If a concept earns it, we continue: detailed design development, rapid prototyping — 3D-printed models, functional test pieces, up to a full working prototype — and iteration until it works. Each stage is scoped and quoted separately, so the decision to continue is always yours, never a condition of the study.
Four concept studies from my own engineering work — different domains, same method: strip the problem to physics, generate distinct options, judge them honestly.
A washing-machine-integrated filtration system to keep synthetic microfibres out of the ocean. From concept and FEA through a 3D-printed prototype that captured 75% of fibres in testing.
Read the study → Thermal · Bio-inspiredTranslating the convection principles of termite mounds into a passive cooling architecture for housing — chimney-flute geometry, thermal mass, and stack-effect sizing from first principles.
Read the study → Subsea · Embodiment designConcept-to-embodiment design of a tethered 4-wheel-drive seabed drilling vehicle: in-wheel motors, swing-arm suspension, material selection, cost model and failure-mode analysis.
Read the study → Test engineering · First principlesMeasuring the failure stresses of ordinary chalk in bending, traction, shear, torsion and compression — by designing and building five test rigs from workshop scrap. Resourcefulness as a method.
Read the study →Each study opens with its sketches, the reasoning, and the outcome — the same anatomy your study will have.
I'm a mechanical development engineer based in Buchs, Switzerland. By day I design next-generation vacuum-valve technology for semiconductor process tools — work where a tolerance is a contract and "almost works" doesn't exist.
Before that I spent three and a half years at Hilti qualifying joining technologies across three countries, and earlier still I led a 19-person student team building a supersonic rocket — where I once took an airbrake from blank page to optimised, 3D-printed prototype in a single week. The thread through all of it: I love the moment a problem looks impossible, because that's where first-principles thinking pays.
"When I face a new challenging problem, a thousand ideas spark — designs, materials, tolerances, manufacturing routes — all in a playful mind-game I just love. Engineering isn't a job for me; it's closer to an art, or a game. I don't do it because I must, but because I want to."
This service exists because that moment of impossibility is rare inside one company — and everywhere across industry. If you're stuck, I'd genuinely like to see the problem.
Send it over. Within one working day you'll have a scope, a flat-fee quote, and a kickoff slot — and five working days after that, options on the table. From there the road runs as far as you want: developed design, 3D-printed functional models, a full working prototype.
Prefer email? alevg98@gmail.com · LinkedIn