The club in detail: aims, programme, resources and how it is run.
PoignETS proposes a scientific and technological student club whose purpose is to design and make watches. To start, the club builds on commercial movements, reliable and well documented, and puts its engineering effort into everything around them: the case, the strap, the clasp, and the choice of movement itself.
Design and make complete watches, and learn the engineering that comes with them.
- A watch, from drawing to wrist
- Take every project through to a finished piece someone wears, rather than stopping at the 3D model.
- Put the degree to work
- Apply design, manufacturing and metrology to an object where every hundredth of a millimetre shows.
- Document and pass it on
- Keep the drawings, the decisions and the mistakes, so each cohort starts from what the last one learned.
A watch is mechanical engineering in miniature.
- Mechanical design and CAD
- Case, caseback, crystal seat, crown and gaskets, lugs and strap width, all drawn around a movement's dimensions.
- Manufacturing
- CAM and machining of cases and parts, then finishing: brushing, polishing, bead blasting.
- Materials
- Steel, titanium and brass for the case; leather and hardware for the strap and clasp.
- Tolerancing and metrology
- Tight fits, water resistance, and measuring the movement's rate once it is cased.
Choose, design, make, assemble, then show the result.
- Movement selection
- Compare commercial movements on size, reliability, availability and cost, and pick one.
- Design
- Design the watch around the chosen movement, with design reviews as a team.
- Manufacturing
- Machine the case, and make the straps and clasps.
- Assembly and testing
- Case the movement, fit the hands, close the watch, then check water resistance and timekeeping.
- Club watch
- One watch designed and built together, every year: the recurring part of the club.
- Public showing
- Show the year's watches to the ÉTS community.
A clean place to work, machine time, and watchmaking tools.
- Room or bench space
- Good light and low dust, with lockable storage for small parts.
- Machine time
- Access to a lathe, a mill or a CNC machine for cases and parts.
- Watchmaking tools
- Screwdrivers, tweezers, loupes, movement holders, case openers and presses, a hand-setting tool, a pressure tester and a timegrapher.
- Supplies
- Movements, bar stock, crystals, gaskets, crowns, leather and leatherworking tools.
Tools bought once, and supplies that recur with every watch.
- Tools
- A one-time cost, spread over several years of projects.
- Cost per watch
- Movement, stock, crystal, gaskets and leather are used up by every piece, so the budget is worked out per watch built.
- Pricing
- The detailed budget will be built from real supplier prices and attached to the recognition request.
A democratic club, with an elected executive and yearly reporting.
- Executive
- At least a president, a treasurer and a secretary.
- Founding meeting
- A first general meeting, minuted, to elect the executive.
- Elections
- Positions posted and elections held every year.
- Reporting
- Every year: the member list, an activity report, financial statements and a budget, as ÉTS policy requires.
Finished objects, designed and made at the school, to show.
- Tangible results
- Every project ends in a watch that can be held, worn and presented.
- Student engagement
- Taking part in the club can count toward Génie+.
- A yearly event
- A showing of the year's watches, open to the ÉTS community.
A question about the project?