FreeCAD - Simulation Engineer for Bracket FEA and Mass Reduction

About this project We study how professionals actually work - how experts drive creative and technical software - as research toward better computer interfaces. This is a paid demo project: you complete one realistic task while we record the screen and your spoken commentary. This is the first round. If it goes well, there is a real chance it turns into ongoing work. Assignment Run a static structural analysis on a mounting bracket, interpret the results, then redesign it to cut at least 20% of its mass while keeping a safety factor of 2 or better. You define the part, the material and the load case, and you state your assumptions. Time: 3–4 hours, in one non-stop sitting Fixed budget: $200 Timing: we need the session completed this week You define your own case Choose the bracket, material and load case yourself. Keep the model small enough that it solves in minutes, not hours. How the session works You work inside a cloud computer we provide, with the hardware and software already set up. Your screen, mouse, keyboard and microphone are recorded for the whole session, and you talk through what you are doing as you do it. We are recording how you work, not grading how closely you follow instructions. Use your own workflow and research the way you normally would. Dead ends, restarts and changed minds are genuinely useful to us - please do not tidy up your process. Spoken English matters for this one The commentary is half of what we are paying for, so you need to be comfortable thinking out loud in English for a few hours straight. Fluency matters far less than being able to keep talking while you work. So: please include a voice recording of under 60 seconds with your proposal, answering this question: "How do you decide when your mesh is fine enough?" Just your honest answer in your own words - we are listening for how you explain your thinking, not for a perfect answer. Proposals without a voice note will not be reviewed. Deliverables - The FreeCAD project with both the original and the lightened design - Stress and displacement plots for both versions - A results table: peak stress, displacement, mass and safety factor, before and after - A short note on your material properties, load case and assumptions - A Working_Notes folder with your references, sketches, scratch files and notes Save everything inside Desktop/Outputs/FEA-001/ on the cloud machine. Software for this task is free - no licence needed. Ideal freelancer Mechanical or simulation engineer with hands-on static FEA experience and sound judgment about boundary conditions. You will get a one-page task brief with the full spec at the start of the session.