AMATEUR LIQUID ROCKET
I led the engineering team to design, build, and test a bi-propellant liquid rocket. This was part of a group of amateur rocket-hobbyists called Project Caelus. Over the course of three years, we designed an entire engine, including the CAD of the injector, chamber, and nozzle using Fusion 360, the Piping & Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID), and the recovery system. We fabricated the injector and nozzle using a CNC machine, vertical drill press. I particularly took charge of the injector and nozzle design and testing, but also worked extensively on the plumbing including the design of the P&ID, assembly, and leak testing. We assembled a test stand to house the plumbing and ran multiple successful water cold flows of both propellant towers separately and together. We raised over $10,000 in funding and worked with NASA aerospace engineers and Aerojet Rocketdyne to complete PDR and CDRs of our rocket design.
Engine specifications:
– 2.5 kN thrust
– nitrous oxide & ethanol propellants
– self-impinging doublet injector
– deLaval nozzle
RATATOUILLE-INSPIRED ELECTRONIC HEADBAND
I worked with a two other Caltech students to create an electronically-controlled headband inspired by the movie Ratatouille. In the movie, a rat sits atop a chef’s head and pulls the chef’s hair to control his motions. I taught myself how to use Blender for this project and used it to make a model of the rat from scratch, which we 3D printed, painted, and secured to a headband. We programmed servo motors to move randomly using an Arduino Nano Every and attached them to the rat’s arms. The user’s hair can be threaded through the rat’s hands, which were designed to be closed loops to prevent hair from falling out. We also integrated two red LEDs for the eyes for humor. We documented this project through its entirety using Hackaday. Our project was selected to be presented at the LA Maker Faire + City of STEM event at USC, which included over 20,000 attendees.
GEARBOX + competition
galvo-based fiber switcher
solar flare data visualization tool
