Precision Lathe

In "2.72: Precision Machine Design," Students at MIT are tasked with designing a Lathe capable of turning and facing aluminum with 50 Micron Precision. 

Detailed Solidworks Model of our completed Lathe

Completed Lathe. We Waterjet, CNC Milled, Turned, and Thermoformed every component. Nice try flowers, but we know what the prettiest thing in this picture is.

Turning aluminum stock with the completed late. Look at those chips fly!

Sit to Stand Desk

This desk has the ability to raise up and down, enabling the user to work in either the sitting or standing position. It is passively acutated by two gas springs and can be easily adjusted in half inch increments. 

CAD rendering of the finished Sit to Stand Desk.

Video showing the lift and locking mechanism in the desk. Air springs in each leg are used to supply upward force, allowing the desk to be easily raised and lowered. A solenoid locking mechanism actuated by a foot pedal lets the user lock the desk at the correct height.

Video demonstration of desk in action. 

Smart Beer Fridge

Pass code protected fridge capable of keeping track of its contents. The fridge is used to track my fraternity's beer consumption as well as prevent underage drinking; however, the fridge can be used for any product with a barcode on it. We just decided to solve the most important problem first.

What it lacks in style, it makes up for in capacity.

They call it the iPhone of Beer Fridges.

Locks on the fridge prevent underage drinking. User specific pass codes allow for monitoring of who's taking what. Bar code scanning enables us to collect important data and generate key statistics ti inform future beer runs.

Injection Molded Yo-Yo

In "2.008: Design and Manufacturing II" students design and manufacture 50 yo-yo's. Our Yo-Yo was hamster wheel themed.

CAD rendering of completed yo-yo.

Exploded view of yo-yo. The yo-yo included injection molded and thermoformed parts that press fit and snapped together.

Watch this video to learn more about how we manufactured 50 of these amazing yo-yo's!

Fiber Optic Star Ceiling

The star ceiling is a fiber optic light source designed to look like twinkling stars. An arduino and neo-pixel LED's gave us the flexibility to create mesmerizing light shows.

The back of the star ceiling. Fiber optic cables strategically routed to LED's gave us a realistic sky with programmable effects.

An unpowered starry night sky.

Star ceiling demo. The ceiling is fully programmable to make a variety of awesome patterns and colors.

Leak Detecting Robot

The In-Pipe Leak Detecting Robot is a project being worked on in the  MIT Mechatronics Research Lab. The robot autonomously navigates through gas and liquid filled pipes and detects leaks much faster than standard methods, saving money, resources, and the environment. While working on the project, I designed a new mechanism allowing the robot to passively change shape,and I re-designed the robot to go from fitting within 4 inch pipes to 2 inch pipes.

General overview of how the robot works. A carrier module powers the robot. It carries the motor and other important electronics, while also pushing the detector. The detector is the leak sensing portion of the robot. Its outer surface must always stay close to the pipe wall.

I re-designed the detector to passively compensate for blockages in the pipe. Spring loaded legs allowed for the detector to easily change shape in response to pipe diameter changees.

Demonstration of how the detector module would compensate for a pipe blockage.

I redesigned the carrier module to fit into pipes with half the diameter of the original robot. It utilizes a motor and complex gear train to move inside the pipes.

Side CAD rendering of  the carrier module fitting snugly in its pipe! 

The Penthouse Tenthouse

"2.00B Toy Product Design" is an introductory product design class where students learn about the design process by designing a toy. We designed and manufactured a comforter with embedded air beams that has the ability to turn into a tent. Afraid of the dark? Want to read a book under the covers? We got you covered! Get it?

Product Testing! For Science!

The air beams were embedded into custom sewn nylon sleeves which gave the tent it's shape.

Get Pumped!

2.007 Robot

"2.007: Design and Manufacturing I" is a design class focused around a robotics competition at the end of the semester. Students design robots to complete various tasks in the final competition. The competition focused on traveling up a steep incline grabbing as many flags as possible, and then dumping the flags into the designated bin.

Completed robot!

Completed claw mechanism for grabbing flags. A complex gear train enabled grabbing and picking flags to be accomplished with one motor.

Demo of the robot grabbing a flag, picking it up, and then dumping it. 

Vantage

"2.009: Product Engineering Processes" is a senior capstone product design class where teams of 20 mechanical engineering students ideate and develop a product around a central theme. Our project was called "Vantage." It allowed children to explore their world from a different perspective and immerse themselves in the world they are exploring. A motorized camera encased in a waterproof housing and attached to the end of a "wand" streamed to a virtual reality viewer.

One our team members demonstrating how to use the product.

Completed handle! Wrist support helps kids hold the long device securely.

Finished camera housing and viewer.

Soccer Playing Robot

"2.12: Introduction to Robotics" is an introductory robotics course at MIT and builds off controls and mechanical design principles. The class culminates in a robotics competition. Our competition involved designing a robot that kicked a soccer ball and tried to score on a competing team's goalie robot.

Finished robot.

CAD rendering of the robot.

Too many goals to count.

Other Projects

A collection of other projects, in case it wasn't obvious.

An Anchor and Letters I made for the Harvard DG Sorority.

Queen bunkbed and loft. We slept on them for two years and suprisingly no one was hurt. Our structures class payed off...

Sometimes I like to play around in SolidWorks for fun. I made this pumpkin to celebrate Halloween and learn about surface modeling. It's spooky how dope this pumpkin is.