Chrisanna Bertuccio Portfolio

Hello all,

My name is Chrisanna Bertuccio and I am a masters student in Biomedical Engineering also pursuing the Mechanical Design and Product Development graduate certificate from the Mechanical Engineering Department. During this course, I had the pleasure of creating two projects that pushed me out of my comfort zone and required me to learn new skills. 

For the upcycling project, I created a chalk bag for climbing out of upcycled fabric. This was a fun and challenging project. Firstly I love climbing and I can be very picky about my chalk bags. This was also a great opportunity to put my sewing skills to the test. I had only done a few sewing projects before, but I’ve always wanted to put more time into developing my sewing skills. I also got to use up some old fabric that I had been hanging on to for a project like this. Although my chalk bag is a little rough around the edges, it is functional and fits the earthy neutral aesthetic that I set out to create. 

For my main project I made an end table with a folding leaf in the rustic cottage aesthetic. This project was quite challenging for me because I had never made furniture before and had minimal woodworking experience and tools. In the end, the table turned out alright. I nailed the aesthetic and the final product ended up looking exactly like my original plan. The functionality could be improved as the table is a bit uneven, but it works good enough for my purposes. I plan on keeping it and using it in my living room. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this class because of how much it differs from any other engineering course I have taken at CU. I like how it felt more like an art class and students were given the freedom to make whatever they wanted for their project. This gave me an excuse to finally work on projects that I had been thinking about but didn’t have the time to dedicate to until now. I felt encouraged to try out new skills because I knew functionality was a secondary criteria, which is never the case in my other engineering experiences. This course has made me reconsider the importance of aesthetics in the things I create. 

Please check out my projects here!

Chalk Bag

End table pt 1 and pt 2