PORTFOLIO

Welcome to my portfolio. Here you will find a comprehensive collection of my academic and professional experiences. From university projects, to industry internships, this portfolio showcases my skills, achievements, and growth in various fields. Please take a look around and feel free to contact me with any questions or inquiries.

Senior Design

 

Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Project

For my Senior Design project at Notre Dame, I worked with a team of three other students to design and manufacture a chocolate extruder. The chocolate was to enter a hopper in solid chunks, and exit out of a nozzle as a 1 mm diameter bead. The temperature and flow rate of the chocolate had to be adjustable. 

The design of the core extruder sub-system was my responsibility and was to be an entirely custom design. The crux of the concept revolved around an auger screw housed within a cylinder. As the liquid chocolate entered the cylinder from the hopper, it was pushed to the base of the screw and out of a 1 mm nozzle. 

In order to push the chocolate, the auger screw had to be spinning. To make it spin, the auger screw was attached to a bipolar stepper motor by means of a shaft coupling. To keep the auger screw aligned, a bearing was integrated into a cap secured above the main cylinder. A rotary shaft seal was then integrated below the bearing to prevent liquid chocolate from reaching the bearing and motor. Finally, to prevent unwanted torque on the motor screws, I designed a block between the cap and motor. This block meant that when the stepper motor screws were tightened, a preload was established and no rotation occurred between  motor and cap. 

Models and drawings of the system I drew up in CAD (Solidworks) can be seen both below and to the right. Their purpose was to illustrate the assembly of the entire system. Furthermore, they were used to perform detailed design and component analysis of the extruder subsystems during design reviews. 



Motor Control

For the project, another one of my accomplishments was the successful development of a control system for the stepper motor. This motor was responsible for driving the auger within the core extrusion assembly which pushed out the liquid chocolate.

To achieve precise control over the motor, I utilized an Arduino, DM542T stepper driver, bipolar stepper motor, and potentiometer. The addition of the potentiometer allowed for adjustable speed control of the auger, which was essential in monitoring the extrusion rate of the chocolate.


CAD Drawings:

 


Dyson

 

Research, Design and Development Intern

Over the course of the summer of 2022, I spent 4 months as an intern with Dyson at their UK headquarters in Malmesbury.

During this time, I worked within their floorcare department on various different live projects, ranging from CAD work in Siemens NX, to physical prototyping of new concepts. 

My experience at Dyson was formative in teaching me about the design process and the importance of team collaboration when problem solving product development obstacles. 


1. Design

During my four month internship at Dyson, I had the opportunity to participate in several design reviews, concept ideation days, and team meetings. These experiences provided me with valuable real-world insights into the product development and design process.

I had the opportunity to collaborate closely with a research and design team of 20 engineers to ideate and develop 6 new prototype designs. To develop these new concepts, I started with an initial sketch, then manufactured a rudimentary prototype, and finished by developing CAD models in Siemens NX.

2. Experimentation

My responsibilities while at Dyson also included conducting multiple experiments to test the reliability and durability of new concept designs. This involved developing experimental test procedures that would produce reliable results. Further, I carried out statistical analysis of these results using MATLAB and Labview.

Further, I Improved testing efficiency by 35% by integrating a new Brüel & Kjær data logger. I also used 4 new pieces of test equipment, strain gauges, load cells, pressure sensors and accelerometers. Finally, I made use of a high speed Phantom camera and MATLAB  to evaluate product efficiencies.

3. Collaboration

My time at Dyson demonstrated to me the importance of team collaboration. 

In particular, it taught me that collaboration is crucial in design as it enables diverse perspectives and knowledge to be incorporated into the design process, which results in more innovative solutions. It also ensures that all aspects of a project are considered and potential issues are addressed. Collaboration fosters shared ownership, leading to a better overall outcome.


 


Robotics Research Lab


Over the course of two semesters, I worked in the MiNiRo robotics research lab at Notre Dame. During my time in the lab, my focus has been on two key projects. The first of these was a mini Swarm Robot, and the second the development of an autonomous excavator.


 

Autonomous Excavator

The current research project I am working on is the development of an autonomous excavator. The first step of the project has been to build and test a 3 axis gantry system. The gantry system will be used for preliminary testing of a telescopic arm. Upon successful testing, the arm will be attached to a mobile swarm robot to enable soil excavation.

The next step of the project is to change the control system of the gantry. Currently, I am in the process of changing the CNC controller from Openbuilds' preassembled controller to a custom controller using an Arduino and MATLAB. This will allow for finer control of each stepper motor.

The purpose of control via MATLAB is to allow efficient data collection and processing.

Following this, I will be designing and assembling the telescopic arm for use on the gantry. The arm will consist of 3D printed parts, servos, gears and sensors. 


 

Swarm Robot

My first project in the MiNiRo lab was the development of a mini, Arduino based swarm robot. These mini robots collaborate together in order to complete tasks that alone they would not be able to complete. For instance, where a singular robot walking over a gap may fall, multiple together are able to traverse the gap and keep on walking. (Image bottom right.) Further to developing the robots, my research aim was to determine the ways in which the functionality of the robots could be increased. I used Solidworks to develop a gripper for the front of the robot and designed a supporting tail to improve stability (not pictured). 

The purpose of the gripper at the front was to pick objects up. Whereas previously it could just walk, it was now able to pick up objects off the floor. The tail improved stability of the robot by 33% as it prevented a loss of balance when the robot walked forward. Both gripper and tail were controlled by a servo motor attached to the Arduino. 


 


Laser Precision Manufacturing Lab

 

FBGs and Surface Micro-Machining

Using a Pharos SP-21 femtosecond laser, I carried out experiments to manufacture Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) within the core of a multimode optical fiber. To do so, I used a high precision stage to accurately fire the laser beam within the 50 micrometer core of the fiber. 

Further, in collaboration with 2 other students, I used the laser to micro-machine the surface of various metals to achieve the greatest oleophobicity and contact angle. 

Developed a lab shear test using a tensile tester to test various micro-machined stainless steel coupons. 

Manufacture of radio microscope element

Evaluated whether an Epilog 36-EXT laser cutter could potentially be used to manufacture part of a radio microscope. 

To do this, I had to determine the minimum obtainable lattice on 30-mil board. This was done through the use of a View VMS 250 Benchmark microscope. The microscope allowed me to measure the minimum diameter of the Epilog's laser. 

After multiple tests, the minimum obtainable lattice was determined to be too large and standard deviation of the hole sizes too great. Consequently, it was determined the laser was not suitable for this task.

Epilog 36-EXT Laser Cutter

Non-functional at first, I successfully restarted and operated an Epilog 36-EXT laser cutter. 

Following this, I carried out trial runs of the cutter on various materials to determine the surfaces on which the laser was most effective. Furthermore, I used a View VMS 250 microscope to determine the effect of varying laser parameters on the laser beam itself. 

Finally, I familiarised myself with AutoCAD and Inkscape to generate the DXF files required by the cutter to make custom cuts.

Surface Deposition

Another area I was researching was the surface deposition of micro-spheres on a glass substrate. 

The aim here was to achieve the largest crystal structure on a glass substrate by varying the experimental parameters used i.e. the extraction rate of the substrate from the solution, solution concentration, water temperature, time, etc. 

Results were obtained by designing and developing an experimental test method that would allow me to determine the best combination of parameters  to obtain the largest crystal sphere size. 


 


Other Projects

 

Soft Robotics Research Project

For a soft robotics research project, I was tasked with testing the impact absorption efficiency of various materials. While one option was to use a standard scale and visually measure the maximum value recorded, I opted for a more accurate and reliable approach. 

To achieve this, I utilized the allocated budget to design and manufacture a simple yet effective scale. The scale consisted of 4 load cells, a wooden board, an HX711 A/D Amplifier and an Arduino Uno. By using this custom scale, I was able to record and store data for the duration of the impact. I was subsequently able to analyse and post-process the results using MATLAB.


 

Improved platform with MATLAB processing

Load Cell Array Platform

To the left can be seen an improved version of the load cell array platform designed above.

In contrast to the old platform, this version uses 9 load cells placed on an HDPE board with a total of 9 individual HX711 AD amplifiers. By having 9 individual amplifiers rather than just one, I was able to obtain force measurements for each load cell. This allowed me to map the force measured in each subsection of the board and determine how forces were being distributed across the surface. 

Below can be seen an example set of plots that display the measured force vs time for each individual load cell. Each sub-plot is positioned on the grid in the same position as on the HDPE board.



MATLAB plots of individual load cell impacts as positioned on the board.

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Controls Project - Inverted Pendulum

For a controls project, I developed a PID controller for an inverted pendulum. The aim of the PID controller in this project was to remove the steady state error between the desired pendulum angle and the actual pendulum angle. In order to successfully achieve this goal, I developed the control laws for the pendulum and used a lead lag compensator to reduce the steady state error down to below 1 degree. 


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