Projects

World's First Active Outdoor Air Conditioner

Sustainable Cooling for the World's Hottest Regions

As a joint effort between Phononic, Singapore Power Group, Temasek Foundation, and the Ecosperity fund, Phononic made and installed the worlds first actively cooled fan. Using a custom design impeller fan to drive a 360 degree air curtain and proprietary semi-conductor based heating and cooling techniques, a 14 m² cooled "bubble" is formed in outdoor public places. From concept to field trials in 12 months,

I was the mechanical lead for the project. This is an extremely complicated design including a robust motor and bearing system, precise airflow control, clever mounting schemes, fluid management with piezos and pumps and large form factor manufacturing. I also was responsible for the architectural design and on-site installation portions of the project.

Bryte Sleep System

Bringing the Bedding Industry into the 21st Century

Bryte, Inc claims to have reimagined the bed as we know it. Active pneumatic contour fitting, temperature induced REM control, integration with home automation and a learning algorithm to slowly improve your sleep metrics are all part of their package.

I was the project technical lead, with oversight to managing customer desires, heating and cooling feedback and response controls, modeling novel fluid transport systems, mechanical design, performance testing and balancing technical challenges with the end user experience.

Refrigerated Drone Delivery

CNBC Featured Segment

Our company was featured for the third year as one of CNBC's Disrupter 50 (we've been ranked higher than household names like SpaceX and Spotify). IN order to "one up" our previous displays (including other prototypes of mine) we aired a demonstration of the long-term potential for our technology. We showed the nation that drone-based sandwich and beer delivery may not be as futuristic as you might think.

I designed and handbuilt a drone-powered refrigerator featured on national TV. Even drawing power from the drone itself, it regulated food and beverage storage at a temperature of 2C during flight. Looked pretty slick, too.

World's First Thermoelectric Freezer

"Can't be done"

One of the age-old "thermoelectrics can't do that" aphorisms is that they can't reach freezing temperatures. Challenge accepted. As part of our partnership with Thermofisher Scientific, we designed and brought to manufacturing a 120L -18C undercounter laboratory freezer. As added challenges, we maintained the form factor and visual brand language as our other uncounter products, and made these "stackable" to optimize footprint in cleanrooms and other controlled environments.

I was the mechanical design lead on this project. I was a primary contributor to initial concepts, unique gasket designs, novel frost handling concepts, and manufacturability from through the initial production run. This was extremely challenging thermal design project, and required close collaboration between mechanical, thermal, electrical, industrial design, and product management.

Ultra Compact Laboratory Fridge

Bringing Patient Care to the Patient

These tiny medical refrigerators are meant to sit bedside in hospitals and medical facilities to accomodate patient storage needs ranging from breast milk, insulin storage, and medical samples. On top of that, they're efficient and have no change in their low noise level during operation.

This was my initial leadership role within the team. Running concurrently with the undercounter refrigerator, I essentially lived in China for the later half of 2016 to ensure the success of both programs. The small form factor led to a number of unique manufactuing challenges including complex sheet metal design, foaming injection limitations and trying to fit all the required components into such a small form factor.

World's First Energy Star Rated Laboratory Fridge

David Beats Goliath: Thermofisher Scientific

What started as an in-house brand of health care and life science refrigerators eventually gained enough marketshare to convince Thermofisher Scientific to scrap their existing product line in favor of the one our team designed and manufactured. This is the only laboratory refrigerator, regardless of technology or price range, to meet the government energy-star guidelines that have become a must-have in consumer products. To further differentiate itself, the system also touts totally redundant thermal systems, on-board data logging and web-portal access, and is ADA compliant.

As the story goes, I was "the closest thing to a manufacturing engineer we had." On top of design responsibilites for major subsystems like the vacuum insulated glass door, I proved myself as a driving force in manufacturing in our 9 month ramp from product mockups to full mass production.

Die Casting Process Controls

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

The die-casting company in question managed to make $1 million worth of product anually, despite using 60 year old machines and diagnostic techniques like the age-old "screwdriver stethoscope." Impressive as it may be, to mitigate risk and appeal to customers some new techniques were required.

I was tasked with building systems to help diagnose common hydraulic issues on the casting machines to reduce downtime and replace trial-and-error alignment process of the 3 tooling slides to minize QC fallout and material consumption. These projects were heavily software based, and this was an excellent primer in programming, electronics, and data aquistion systems.

World's First Tungsten 3D Printer

ExOne and RP+M Collaborative Tungsten M-Flex Material

I was able to play a small part in adding a major metal option to the ever expanding 3D printing universe. A safer alternative to lead based radiation shielding. I provided support to the team of research and development engineers by designing and fabricating prototype components and research equipment. This was a great early learning experience as to what it takes to innovate.

Mech./Aero. Dept. Investment Casting Laboratory

Implementing new manufacturing process at CWRU... Casting with 3D printing.

The overt goal of this project was installing a functional investment casting operation for the Mechanical Engineering department at Case Western Reserve University. A secondary objective was the ability to successfully create brass castings not only from wax models, but also from models created with additive manufacturing. Training documentation was developed to allow future students to particiate and engage in a first-hand casting experience.

BackFire Engine

Inline four, dual overhead, 1600cc Motorcycle Engine - Designed From Scratch

Complete embodiment design of a motorcycle engine, created from the ground up by (an awesome) design team of 10, with myself as team lead.

Mixing/Cooling Device

The centerpiece of Bar2D2

While also one of the main fluid components of the Bar2D2 projects, its design and fabrication was a large project in its own right. This stainless steel, direct metal laser sintered device relies on internal geometry that would be essentially impossible to produce without additive manufacturing technologies.

Wrist-Assist

Opening possibilities for those without rotional movement of the wrist

An easily manufacturable device designed to assist the elderly, handicapped, and injured in opening bottles and jars. The concept is to remove the need to apply torque directly from the wrist by translating rotational force into an easy, linear action.