Baseball Bat MOI, NY Yankees, 2017
This device measures the moment of inertia (MOI) of a baseball bat. I built it with a team at the University of Pittsburgh for the New York Yankees so they can measure their bats and compare how hard it is to swing each bat. This is the first time I actually got paid to work with electronics. I didn't build the whole thing, but I did program the electronics. I developed the laser gate, made the user interface, and did most of the testing and QA to make sure it was a great product for the Yankees to use. Last I heard, they're using the heck out of it!
This device measures the moment of inertia (MOI) of a baseball bat. I built it with a team at the University of Pittsburgh for the New York Yankees so they can measure their bats and compare how hard it is to swing each bat. This is the first time I actually got paid to work with electronics. I didn't build the whole thing, but I did program the electronics. I developed the laser gate, made the user interface, and did most of the testing and QA to make sure it was a great product for the Yankees to use. Last I heard, they're using the heck out of it!
Wall Following Robot, 2017
I built this robot to take the red tube with a secret message in it from another robot, follow the wall, and deliver it to another robot. It uses an infrared LED and photo-diode to sense when the tube has arrived, an infrared time-of-flight laser sensor to determine its distance from the wall, and when two magnets stick to a single piece of metal, it unloads the red tube. It runs entirely autonomously, except that when it receives the tube it makes a 180-degree, whose angle it measures using encoders on the wheels.
I built this robot to take the red tube with a secret message in it from another robot, follow the wall, and deliver it to another robot. It uses an infrared LED and photo-diode to sense when the tube has arrived, an infrared time-of-flight laser sensor to determine its distance from the wall, and when two magnets stick to a single piece of metal, it unloads the red tube. It runs entirely autonomously, except that when it receives the tube it makes a 180-degree, whose angle it measures using encoders on the wheels.
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STEAM CardBot, 2016
Cardbot is a $25 approach to teaching computer programming to children. Many Robots, such as SparkFun's RedBot can cost well over $100, and products like Lego Mindstorms come in kits that start around $350. The CardBot was a cardboard based solution to getting kids started with Arduino microcontrollers, basic sensors and interacting with robots. You can learn more about this project on our website. I worked on a superb team of five to develop CardBot and contributed the majority electronic design. I'm no specialist in education, but I was still amazed at how rapidly 10-14 year-old designers could get the electronics working. CardBot has already emboldened dozens of young minds by giving them the capacity to build an autonomous device. 
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Balancing Robot, 2016
I was given an Arduino Microcontroller for Christmas 2015, and immediately thought that I could easily build a balancing robot. Well, it wasn't as easy as I thought, but I managed to succeed with two different iterations. Here is an image of the robot before any of the wiring had been completed, but after all the electrical components had been installed on my original design 3D printed chassis. 
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An early version of the balancing robot was made of two squares of wood separated by threaded rods. It had no encoders on the wheels nor independent control of the wheels, but it did have a screen for calibrating the balance point.
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Star Tracker, 2016
My father is an amateur astronomer and amateur photographer, but never had the two hobbies met. He wanted a device that he could mount his camera on to track the stars for 20, 30, and even 60 minute exposures. I made him this star tracker in a day. Simply bolt the device to a tripod and am the axis of the hinge at the north star. Then mount your camera on the camera mount and aim it at the star of choice. Then turn the device on and watch it track the stars! A later version of this device has LEDs shorted out or removed from the circuit boards to delete the light pollution from the device. I also constructed a device to help the user orient the star tracker towards the North Star so that its axis of rotation is parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation. I made a quick video about it and addressed the video to my muse, hero, and twin brother, Tristan. |