Robot design challenge
In a post-apocalyptic future, the entire world is a plywood sheet painted white. Nuclear waste has been haphazardly stored in bean cans and scattered across the barren wasteland. But there is hope. A bottomless pit that happens to also have the diameter of the bean cans lies somewhere in the world. In this challenge, robots needed to start within a 30cm x 30cm x 30cm box, find all five canisters, and deposit them into the hole.
DFM/DFA redesign
In this project a team and I redesigned a Traxxas shock absorber and chassis for simplfiying manufacturability and assembly. The design also introduced new functionality that permits track-side adjustment of the damping properties.
Improved block mold
In sub-Saharan Africa, the UN has introduced a new building material: interlocking compressed soil blocks. Traditional brick and mortar and formed concrete construction is environmentally taxing and approximately the same cost worldwide. As a consequence, a majority of impoverished people in these countries are unable to afford durable housing and instead rely on wattle and daub construction that must be rebuilt each year after the rainy season. This improved block mold tackles design problems with prior block designs.
Joran Booth, Ph.D. in Mech. Eng. 