School Projects

For this engineering design class, groups of 6 students were tasked to design 3 different types of robots to compete in a robot-sumo style competition. I mainly focused on designing and building our walking linkage R/C robot. I designed the chassis to house the motors and linkage assemblies. I also conducted SolidWorks Motion Analysis to spec motors, and sourced all the gearing and electronic components. To fabricate the robot, I used a water jet, lathe, mill, and 3D printer. Our team ended up winning the competition, with our linkage robot winning every match! I've included a mini highlight reel of our robot competing for Team Major SSASS.

What I used/did/learned: SolidWorks, machining.

For this 4-person group project, we decided to design and program a 5-DOF robotic arm to play Jenga using touch and camera detection. I designed the robot model and URDF in SolidWorks, as well as wrote a function to convert cartesian position to joint values using geometry-based conversion. I also helped develop touch detection thresholds using joint state data processed in MATLAB. I've included a video of me playing with it.

What I used/did/learned: Python, ROS/RVIZ, MATLAB, SolidWorks, machining.

For this partner project, we had the idea of creating a tennis simulator by putting two virtual 7-DOF robots from class onto sliding joints and having them hit a ball back and forth in Gazebo. I worked on developing an iterative algorithm with velocity-based inversion to convert our desired 5-DOF cartesian positions into 8-DOF joint positions, as well as writing quintic splines to position our arm in place and swing with smooth, continuous movement. I also worked on refining the integration of two robots into Gazebo, and generated joint state data using MATLAB.

What I used/did/learned: Python, ROS/RVIZ, Gazebo, MATLAB

For this group-based project class, I, along with 3 other students, was tasked to design a ball shooting mechanism for an elevated goal. We ended up going with a motorized hopper and flywheel shooter mechanism. I designed the entirety of the flywheel shooter mechanism.

For this project, we were required to model in SolidWorks and keep our BOM within a $250 budget. We also had to defend our designs in both a preliminary and a critical design review, where I used SolidWorks FEA and MATLAB motor calculations to defend my decisions.

What I used/did/learned: SolidWorks, SolidWorks FEA.

For this project, we were tasked to design a gear transmission to couple a brushed DC motor to a bike wheel, and were given a budget of $175. After performing MATLAB calculations to determine our desired gear ratio, we decided to be ambitious and design a combination chain-and-planetary gear transmission. You can see the 3 stages of reduction, from chain to planetary to chain.

What I used/did/learned: SolidWorks, MATLAB.