Winston Moy, class of 2011, first came to TCNJ as an open options engineering major. He had no idea which discipline he would be interested in, so he remained open to different possibilities. Taking TCNJ’s Conducting Robots course during his junior year was an eye-opening experience for Winston because it was an interdisciplinary class that worked with many different fields such as Interactive Multimedia (IMM), music, and multiple engineering disciplines in order to create a solution to help conduct an orchestra. He and his team chose to make a robot. This was the first time he used Arduino, an electronic prototyping platform, and saw the beauty of open source. He learned how to problem solve on a large scale rather than using singular calculations. He also got a taste of what working on a senior project might be like.
Winston finally chose to pursue mechanical engineering because he felt most comfortable working on visual and tangible problems. He found that his mechanical engineering background in strength of materials and physics has helped him in his job and his hobby with Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines. After graduating from TCNJ, he decided to attend graduate school to further explore different niches within mechanical engineering. With a Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship from the US government, he was able to work with the Navy at NAVAIR at the University of Virginia branch that was focused on designed support equipment. Unfortunately, the position was not as focused on flying and aerospace as he had hoped.
For his after-work hobby, he purchased a desktop CNC machine from Kickstarter through the company Carbide and started posting short videos on YouTube to show off the projects he was working on. After overcoming his initial fear of public speaking, he started to really enjoy creating helpful and educational videos for others. While at work, he constantly found himself thinking about going home to work on his CNC projects in his garage and on his YouTube videos.
He was eventually offered a position at Carbide 3D where they design and manufacture desktop CNC machines. He currently works there as a Director of Content and is focused on creating educational and R&D videos. He enjoys teaching himself and others new things through his videos. The Carbide channel tends to be more educational while his personal channel is funnier and more exploratory. His goal with YouTube is to help at least one person learn something. Although Winston has had viral videos reach over 1 million views, the most important aspect of his videos is still the quality of engagement he has with his audience and that he is able to help people learn and grow. His advice to students is to find a hobby and incorporate it into life. He encourages young engineers to “stay open-minded and follow a passion–it will keep you curious and provide you with different doors of opportunity to other possible career options.”
Check out the following for more information:
Winston Moy’s video from the Conducting Robots course
Carbide 3D YouTube Channel