Projects
A collection of projects spanning mechanical design, robotics and electronics, built in classrooms, workshops and spare time.
Photo showing a test session with a user to improve the general system design
Bass Guitar Adaptation
Colorado School of Mines • Human Centered Design Studio
Music is a language that transcends cultural differences, but not all standard instruments are designed that way. This project, developed in partnership with Craig Hospital and the River Deep Foundation, set out to make the bass guitar accessible to individuals with limited hand dexterity or strength.
I led the lever subsystem which was the core mechanical interface that allows a player to fret notes without requiring the grip strength a standard bass normally demands. This meant designing, modeling and iterating on a mechanism that had to be both functionally precise and physically comfortable for users with varying limitations. I also produced the complete SolidWorks assembly for the full system and used SolidWorks Composer to create an instruction manual, this way the product could begin the process of manufacturing.
The reward of this project was being able to see the joy on the user’s face when they could feel how easy it felt to play music.
• skill
Photo showing testing of the heating element before placing on full assembly
Pneumatic Injection Molder
Colorado School of Mines
For this class project our team was tasked to build a solution to specifically 3d printing waste. To solve this we designed and constructed a fully functional pneumatic injection molder capable of producing small molded plastic parts including a small “The Rock” shaped head as the test component.
During this project I was the electronics lead and used a PID control system to keep the heating element at the proper temperature. Also a simple LED color system was developed to visually display whether the heating element was at the necessary temperature and if the plastic was ready to be pressed into the mold.
Working with pneumatic actuation, mold design and the thermal and pressure requirements of the injection process gave me a stronger understanding of the injection molding process. Having a strong understanding of this form of manufacturing has improved my overall ability to design parts for a specific form of production.
• skill
Photo displaying board and strip from test, currently displayed is number of pixels lit controlled by potentiometer
Freelance CAD & Wearable Lighting System
Freelance Work
Two independent contracts covering opposite ends of my skillset. Precision mechanical CAD and electronics prototyping.
The first was a CAD project that needed a model that followed an existing SketchUp design and rebuilding it properly to specific measurements in SolidWorks to produce a STEP file ready for CNC manufacturing. This worked with clean geometry and the client wanted to test out how small some of the tolerancing could be as the final design is for a high end cabinet handle.
The second is an ongoing wearable lighting project. The goal is to design a system that can make an individual feel more immersed in an environment with wearable lighting and interactable elements that can affect what the lights look like on the user. The first contract milestone was a working proof of concept of a light strip with different animations that can change based on the data from a variety of sensors. The next phase, focused on wearability and interactions in a specific environment and case, picks back up later this year.
• skill
Photo displaying camera server where the team member had previously been set as recognized which will not shoot at user
Face Tracking Alarm System
Colorado School of Mines • Robotics Lab
For this class project the prompt was to create a system that could either function in home defense or home alarming. Our team’s answer was a motorized, face-tracking turret that uses an ESP32-CAM module to identify registered faces and make a shoot/no-shoot decision in real time. This way the turret would only be active when an unrecognized face was seen.
I ended up driving most of the technical work creating the facial recognition software and the servo reaction as well as making sure it was properly mounted.
For a v2 of this project I would likely lean towards the alarm style of system and instead of mounting onto an existing vehicle, it would still use similar facial recognition software but instead of the nerf gun being shot, it would possibly cause a light or sound effect. Also upgrading to a camera hosted on a separate server would allow for a much higher quality and more reliable video than the ESP32-CAM produces.
• skill
Photo displaying screen after the word hello was typed using the displayed keycaps
Aurebesh Translator [In Progress]
Personal Project
Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland is covered in Aurebesh, the most common written language of Star Wars. It’s on everything you see when you look around, but unless you’ve memorized the alphabet or have your phone out, you can’t read any of it.
This led to the development of the Aurebesh Translator which is a handheld input device built around a custom button matrix. Instead of English characters on the keycaps, each key is labeled with its Aurebesh equivalent. Press a character, and the screen displays the English letter. The end result is a tactile, standalone decoder that can fit in the world it was designed for, without feeling like I am breaking my immersion by opening an app.
The electronics and translation logic are complete and functional, the next phase is the enclosure. The design will be 3D printed to appear like something a resident of Batuu might have in their pocket and feel in universe.
• skill