Robotics · Mechatronics · Prototype hardware — Fremont, CA
I design the parts, print and machine them, solder and wire them up, then debug the motors, power and sensors until the thing actually moves right. Below is what I've built and what broke along the way.
01 — Featured · 2026 · in design
A hexagonal robot coaster, 112 mm across and 39 mm tall. It drives itself under your cup, answers hand gestures, and brakes before it reaches a table edge.
A tower dock the coaster drives onto to charge. I went through four concepts, each with a cutaway to check contact placement and cable routing.
02 — Aegis V1 · 2025 → 2026 · built & running
V2 exists because V1 got built. These are two real iterations on a bench, and the problems I had to solve to make them move.
Aug 2025 · Iteration 1
80/20 aluminum frame, three omniwheels, a breadboard and a rat's nest of jumpers. Driven from a keyboard to prove out the holonomic wheel mixing before any electronics got finalized.
Aug 2025
Translation and rotation on the floor, tethered to a bench supply. Tuning the wheel angles (90° / 210° / 330°) until "forward" actually meant forward.
Sep 2025 · Iteration 2
Designed in SolidWorks and 3D printed. Three N20 gearmotors in a hex frame, sized to sit under a cup. Wiring, connectors and power distribution done by hand.
Sep 2025
Raspberry Pi 5, Pololu Motoron driver and an upward camera. The robot follows a hand moving above it, with Python control running on the Pi.
Symptom
One wheel went dead mid-testing.
Root cause
Over-voltage. A 7.4 V pack was driving 6 V-rated N20 motors, and full-power stall tests finished one off.
Fix
Added a software duty cap (81%, about 6 V average) and specced matched 12 V encoder motors on a 3S pack.
Symptom
After swapping in a replacement motor, the robot spun instead of translating.
Root cause
The replacement was 30 RPM against 220 RPM on the others. A holonomic base needs matched wheels, and you can't out-gain a top-speed mismatch in software.
Fix
Replaced all three with matched encoder motors so the base can move to closed-loop velocity control.
Symptom
Cup tracking kept locking onto arms, paintings and people.
Root cause
An upward camera only sees the cup as a shadow against the ceiling. That signal can't reliably tell a cup from anything else overhead.
Fix
Re-architected perception around a retroreflective IR marker: a NoIR camera, an 850 nm LED ring and an IR-pass filter, so the marker glows and everything else goes dark. The detector and its tests are written, and hardware bring-up is in progress.
Symptom
Motion was jerky enough to slosh a drink.
Root cause
Raw PD output was sent straight to the wheels, with no limits on acceleration or jerk.
Fix
Wrote a critically damped, jerk-limited motion profiler, an α-β target predictor and a curvature speed limiter. All are covered by unit tests and run on the Pi.
03 — Smart Mirror · 2025 · built & working
A round mirror on a pan/tilt servo head that turns to keep your face centered as you move around the room.
04 — More
2024 · Founder & technical lead
I led a three-person team on a pressure-fed ethanol/nitrous rocket engine with nitrogen pressurization, covering plumbing design, control software and early fabrication.
I also set up the shop from scratch. I bought and moved a Bridgeport mill and two lathes, got three-phase power running, and ran the forklift.
2026 · Software product
A solar-operations platform I built and deployed. It pulls inverter and utility-bill data, tracks long-term performance, has an AI agent that answers operational questions, and automates reporting and maintenance email.
Education
Mechanical engineering coursework to junior standing (2022–2024): statics, dynamics, materials, thermodynamics, circuits, manufacturing, CAD and programming.
Forklift certified.