Projects

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In Summer 2020 Pilgrim Media Group reached out to me to build a larger-than-life animatronic shark that simulates the bite of an adult Tigershark. The resulting project aired internationally on the Discovery Channel in Shark Week's Mike Tyson versus Jaws special. The entire project was designed, fabricated, assembled, tested, and filmed on set in only 3 weeks.

Multiple types of liquid flowcell fixtures I developed to rapidly and reliably test production sensors in various light, gas, and chemical conditions. The fixtures feature 128 modular electrical and fluid connections that are all formed simultaneously through poka-yoke mechanical features.  

Developed electro-mechanical and electro-optical systems to automate optical cross-section testing on cryogenic infrared imaging sensors. This system used a series of lasers, mirrors, attenuators, beam splitters, and cryogenic detectors that were all automated using custom electronics and custom programs to command and control an astronomical fork mount.

A simple rotary vane-driven mechanism designed for use in an LNG Rocket. Primary design constraints were weight, volume, and cost. I designed this system to interface with an avionics PCB that I developed to interface with the various solenoids, thermocouples, telemetry systems, and sensors onboard the rocket (detailed in the project below).

A rocket designed to reach 45,000 feet using liquid natural gas propulsion (LNG). The avionics system is responsible for actuating the various valves that control the propulsion and read over 60 sensors that allow the flight computers to perform trajectory calculations, performance monitoring, automate abort sequences, and communicate with a custom ground station. 

 A fully automated 4.5 meter radio telescope system capable of detecting the 21 centimeter hydrogen line. Every aspect of this system was designed and built from scratch, including the mechanics, electronics, software, RF circuit, and detector. Currently, the system is capable of tracking dozens of objects and has a constantly growing object database. The system can measure Doppler shifts in order to calculate the relative velocity of celestial objects and can autonomously create spacial images of radio emission sources. The system is currently being expanded into an interferometric multi-scope system of phased arrays. 

LASI is a very sensitive Sagnac interferometer system capable of detecting the Earth's absolute rotational velocity. The system has both a free-space interferometer and a fiber-space interferometer. The two interferometers motorized on three-axis which can be positioned and rotated for calibration, sensitivity, and orientation. It also has a touch screen where the user can run experiments and make measurements, making it a useful educational science instrument.

An international competition to between universities to build a remote semi-autonomous rover for Earth missions analogous to the NASA missions on Mars. The rover hosts an array of navigational sensors, such as LIDAR, and a full suite of experiments to detect signs of past and present life. The rover is also designed to conduct remote repairs on downed lunar modules. The rover will be controlled from up to 2 kilometers away and has a battery life of three hours depending on activity. 

The culmination of radiation data collected from across the United States using cars, locomotives, and aircraft. This project was inspired by the  2011 Fukushima incident and began as a study of radiation levels along the California coast. However it quickly grew into study of radiation levels across the country. The data was collected by custom sensors and equipment that we calibrated by industry equipment and sources. The research page has a more in-depth explanation of the research and its findings.

This experiment was conceived and conducted out of pure curiosity, are their microbes in the atmosphere and can was capture them. A secondary aspect of this experiment was to measure the radiation levels at various altitude-presuming a change due to atmospheric attenuation. This experiment was conducted by placing a custom payload of bio traps and sensors aboard a weather balloon. The experiment reached nearly 100,000 feet and brought back data showing interesting phenomena such as the Pfotzer maximum.

This force sensor was developed as an alternative to strain gauges. The sensor requires no external electronics or amplifiers. Outputs a linear analog signal proportional to force. Has a 0.005 oz resolution and sensing range of 120 lbs. Is is completely hermetically sealed making it water proof, can withstand dynamic forces up to 500 lbs and is extremely resistant to ESD in excess of 20kv. This patented sensor offers extremely fast and accurate response time and a very low sensitivity to temperature changes,

This capacitive sensor was developed to be an electronics hobbies product. Capable of measuring proximity up to 12" using capacitance. The on board micro processor would interrogate that capacitive antenna and output a proportional analog voltage using a simple RC circuit. 

This system used a motorized polarizer and a CMOS camera to detect man made surfaces. As the polarizer changes its orientation, major flat surfaces, that are presumably man made, would uniformly fluctuate in light intensity. A computer vision algorithm was written to detect this change as a function of the surface being man made.

The system was developed to eliminate the need for mechanical and motorized gimbals in video stabilization systems. This allows aircraft, drones, and ground vehicles to have, more robust, solid-state vision systems. The system utilizes an IMU to measure the pitch and roll of the drone and then rather than counter rotating motors to level the image, the system would digitally counter rotate the image in software. This minimized space, cost, energy consumption, and weight of the system, while increasing reliability. However in order to make the video seamless,  the video was cropped, effectively lowering the overall video resolution.

This drone was a hobby project to experiment with GPS guidance and autonomy. The drone its self had a 7 foot wing span, was a molded carbon fiber shell, and had a 2kg payload capacity. The drone carried a custom on board UV/VIS/IR spectrometer, radiation sensors, thermal cameras, head tracking cameras, gas sensor, wind speed sensors, and many more. It was capable of planing way points, landing its self a maintain altitude, and transmit telemetry data all on a program written from scratch. The custom GUI also provided a 3D visualization for the aircraft orientation, a heads up display for the video feed, and really time graphs of the sensor data.

System was designed and constructed with STEM educational outreach in mind. The system has dozens of cameras, sensors, and motors. Featuring a UV laser gatling gun, two end affectors with onboard interactive speakers, and interactive capacitive sensors. The system was controlled from a remote laptop using a GUI and a xbox 360 controller. The video feed, sensors, and camera vision software, would allow the robot to interact with people making them believe the system was fully, rather than semi-autonomous, unknowing of the operator. The system has a battery life of 15 hours a range of 1 kilometer.

A system made to supplement my high school hobby of model rocketry. This system used a 6-axis IMU and a complimentary filter to maintain the launch angle of the rocket. If the system tilted beyond a threshold angle due to wind, or uneven propellant burn, fins at the head of the rocket would automatically adjust to realign to the launch angle. The system was later modified to calibrate on take of to the initial launch angle and post launch secondary angle. Allowing into maintain a wide range of angles and trajectories.

Various systems including custom sensor data loggers, motor controllers, and GSM modules to control various systems over cell networks. This also includes some wireless electro-mechanical systems and software.

One of my first robotics projects. Although the electronic and mechanical design was custom, the system used an off the shelf flight controller to stabilize and fly autonomously. The system of course used a video transmitter, could autonomously take off/land, and had gps way point guidance. It was later modified to have an RC car as the landing legs and it was transformed it into a vehicle that could both drive and fly.