Yichen Zhai, Ph.D.

Travel

I enjoy hiking and traveling to new places. So far, I have explored 32 of the 63 amazing U.S. National Parks. Many of my research ideas and design concepts emerged during these journeys. I find that nature, museums, and even industrial sites often offer unexpected inspiration for new mechanisms and engineering systems.

National Park Map Collection

Big Pine Lakes – Sierra Nevada

Hiking in Glacier National Park

Hiking in Faroe Islands

The Subway trail - Zion Nation Park

Hiking to the bottom of Grand Canyon

Fern Canyon - Redwood National Park

Hiking Koko Head in Oahu

Exit Glacier - Kenai Fjords National Park

Beautiful Moment in Virgin Islands National Park

Maker

I enjoy making things of all kinds, from handcrafts and electric circuits to assembling 3D printers, CNC machines, and hobby models such as LEGO or wooden toys. These hands-on experiences and skills have also greatly contributed to my academic research.

This train and railway system was fully 3D printed using a Bambu X1C printer. I redesigned the locomotive from a vintage model and motorized it. It was so satisfying to have a train at home. To make it even more fun, let’s add a helical track!

LEGO is fascinating for all ages, while it is less creative when the builds simply follow the manuals. This 6-DoF RC excavator was built from three different sets without any official instructions, and it cost me 50+ hours over a spring break.

I enjoy building electronic circuits on prototype boards instead of ordering PCBs. This electronic lock system was my undergraduate thesis project and included more than 4,000 hand-soldered connections.

I have at least 15 RC hobby toys that work on water, land, and in the air. This tiny 1:35 RC crawler was completed the night before my PhD defense, where I also presented a 3D-printed legged crawler.

Fun Facts

I have a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, while I am currently working on electronics-free robots.
During my master’s studies in New Jersey, I memorized most of the major public transit routes in the surrounding states, including buses, subways, trolleys, trains, and even their schedules and transfer walking distances. Other students often asked me for route suggestions instead of using Google Maps, and they called me the “living map”.

Last updated: November 2025