Projects
Yonder Dynamics
Competed at the University Rover Challenge, achieving 5th place in 2023 and 6th in 2024 worldwide. The rover navigates rough Mars-analog terrain via a Rocker-Bogie suspension system, carries a 5 DoF arm capable of lifting 14 kg, and houses a custom-built Raman spectrometer to detect signs of extinct and extant life. Also developed a Delta wrist attachment as a modular arm end-effector. Ongoing: strain gauge analysis hand-in-hand with FEA for further structural optimization.
ARCSnake — NASA JPL
ARCSnake is an amphibious snake robot for exploring beachheads and underwater caverns, built in collaboration with JPL's EELS project (targeting icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn). Six segments each driven by Archimedes screw drives, connected via differential U-joints. My research: designing durable inflatable bladders to control depth underwater, plus a propeller/fin testing rig for efficiency characterization. Co-authored submission to IROS 2026.
Archimedes Testbed
The Archimedes Screw Propulsion Testbed characterizes propulsion fluid dynamics across aquatic, granular, and transitional media. Built for rapid interchange of screw-shell geometries. Using dimensional analysis, I derived a custom Aspect Ratio variable to correlate data with screw shell parameters — informing marine, terrestrial, and multimodal locomotion designs. Resulted in a submission to ICRA 2026.
Voice-Controlled Car
An autonomous RC car interpreting natural language commands via Google Gemini LLM. Parses speech into VESC motor parameters (RPM, duration, steering angle). A 2D LiDAR interfaces with ROS 2; a costmap partitions scan data into sectors to compute directional risk, steering toward least resistance even when the user says "go straight."
Haptic Glove
Wearable controller for teleoperating robotic hands with physical force feedback. Potentiometers map finger positions to a robotic hand; hobby servos on elastic cables actively resist the user's fingers. An ESP32 processes real-time data to set servo angles. Final version uses a capstan drive with hall-effect encoders for precise position estimation.
Autonomous Seaglide
A modified buoyancy-driven Seaglide submersible with fully custom electronics — every PCB and sensor integration designed from scratch. Deployed to autonomously measure chlorine levels in a pool environment. Architecture designed for scalability: potential upgrades for open-ocean deployment with expanded sensor payloads for salinity, temperature, and dissolved oxygen monitoring.
FRC 2022 — Team 3749
Built for the 2022 FRC Rapid React season — shooting basketball-sized balls into a central hoop and climbing multi-height monkey bars. I led development of a 4-bar pneumatically actuated intake (first pneumatic system the team ever attempted), feeding a spool shooter. A Limelight camera locks onto reflective hoop tape; a lazy-susan ball bearing gives the turret 290° rotation. The team qualified for the FRC World Championship — for the first time in 11 years.
MAE3 Robotics
For UCSD's MAE 3 competition, teams built robots to pick up and stack blocks at varying heights. Our design features a cascade-lift system moving a motorized claw 14" vertically, plus a spring-loaded alignment mechanism that self-rights the robot's position at the stacking platform. Won the Best Manufacturing Award for successfully integrating complex systems within tight tolerances.