Portfolio

Projects & Research

I'm interested in research which incorporates several fields of study:

• Robotics
• Locomotion
• Haptics
• Human-Machine Interaction
• Autonomy

Gravity Compensation

Research at Barrett:

• Haptic Human-Machine Interaction
• Gravity Calibration
• Task-space Cartesian Control

Autonomous Surface Platform

Further information: Autonomous Surface Platform

Through Olin College's SCOPE program, I'm leading a team of 5 fellow students consulting with Schlumberger Ltd. We're tasked with designing and implementing an autonomous surface craft for acoustic surveying of the sea floor. Among other requirements, the craft must be inexpensive to deploy and use, and must integrate positioning, navigation, and data collection systems. Our first prototype, pictured at right, is currently undergoing its first round of field testing.

Force-Controlled Actuator

Further information: SERA Actuator

I worked in a team of 6 students to ideate, design, and prototype a force-controlled actuator targeted at the high-end hobby market. We used the RoboCup teen-sized robotic soccer competition, which uses 3- to 5-foot bipedal robots as players, as a target application. The team produced a number of potential designs and prototypes, but determined after sufficient design iteration that an off-the-shelf combination of components was available that provided adequate performance. We also met weekly with an outside adviser, former Director of Engineering for Bluefin Robotics, to hone our project management skills.

Initial Prototype for Replacement Control System for the FIRST Robotics Competition

I worked with a group of fellow volunteers to design and develop a prototype robot control system for the FIRST Robotics Competition. During this process, we developed a working, modular prototype using the CAN-bus. I participated actively in bi-weekly planning meetings and developed embedded software for multiple subsystems, as well as a control library using National Instrument's LabVIEW software.

Due in part to the success of our prototype, the 2009 FIRST Robotics Competition is scheduled to include a brand-new control system, programmable in LabVIEW and using the NI Compact-RIO.

Snake Project

Further information: Snake Project

In conjunction with Olin's Biomimetic Robotics Lab & the Principles of Engineering course, I worked with 4 of my classmates to design, construct, and control a series of robotic snakes. Over two semesters, we developed several mecahnical revisions, and produced both a two-dimensional "Snake on a Plane" and a subsequent revision capable of three-dimensional movement. Between the two final versions, our snakes exhibit the serpintine, rectilinear, and sidewinder gaits. Check out the project overview for more.

M2 Bipedal Research

Work Experience

Barrett

Further information: Barrett Technology

Besides the research at Barrett (described above), I also participate fully in the company. Work under multiple grants, submitting proposals, software design and development, supporting various research projects at various corporations and research universities around the world, participating in domestic and international conferences and trade shows, etc.

• AAAI 2008 (Chicago, USA)
• IROS 2008 (Nice, France)
• ICRA 2009 (Kobe, Japan)
• ICORR 2009 (Kyoto, Japan)
• IJCAI 2009 (Pasadena, USA)
• 2009 Interational Robots, Vision, and Motion Control (Chicago, USA)
• Robo Business 2009 (Boston, MA)

Low-Energy Wireless – BBN

I worked on the JAVeLEN, a complete wireless networking solution which consumes 100 to 1000 times less energy than today's wireless networks. Each JAVeLEN node uses a pseudorandom sequence to quickly toggle its radio between "on" and power-saving "off." Since each sequence is deterministic, neighboring nodes can time their traffic to reach the required next hop.

Traffic Analysis – Goldman Sachs

During the summer of 2006, I worked at Goldman Sachs in Jersey City, NJ developing an application to correlate network traffic statisics. By integrating several off-the-shelf and proprietary systems, the correlator presents an application-by-application traffic view to the network manager. I gained plenty of experience working with Perl, Oracle SQL, and HTTP while working at Goldman.

Olin Intelligent Vehicles Lab

Papers

First Mass Moment Calibration

Link to Paper During the summer of 2008, while working at Barrett Technology, Inc on the WAM™ robotic arm, I developed a simple, robust method for determining static mass and center-of-mass parameters of a general serial-link robot. This method uses a set of sufficiently distinct poses during a measurement phase to calculate a first-moment-of-the-mass vector for each moving link. The calibration phase takes advantage of a simple filtering technique to mitigate the effects of joint stiction, and is now being used in Barrett products.

Snake

Link to Paper My research team at Olin College developed a novel flexible-spine robotic snake concept during the 2005-2006 academic year. Using this idea, members of the team designed and built both planar and three-dimensional implementations. {Click Here} to read the paper, or view the project homepage for more information. Link to youtube videos. Our work has been referenced by both Hirosi and the cross-tendon drive developed by our colleagues Michael Taylor and Alex Trazkovich at Olin College.

Undergraduate Coursework

Frankling W. Olin College of Engineering is a new and innovative school located in Needham, MA which focuses on design, teamwork, and project-based learning.

• New York Times – Re-engineering Engineering
• Olin College Website

Microelectronic Circuits

Theoretically and experimentally examined CMOS transistors.

Discrete Mathematics

Explored the world of discrete math, including applications in small-world network routing and electronic voting.

Computer Architecture

Designed a full CPU in Verilog and a sound-driven logic gate.

Computational Modeling

Modeled emergence/complexity found in many places, from pirates on a plank to words in a book to puncuated equilibria.

Materials Science

Investigated structure of materials, from testing alloys of aluminum to manufacturing a superconductor.

Linear Algebra / Differential Equations

Explained fourier transforms as a vector projection, and explored solutions to systems of coupled differential equations.

First-Year Math/Physics/Modeling

Developed a simple model of a stirling engine and built and tested a centrifugal hot-wire anemometer using LEGOs(R).

Other Experiences

Teaching & Tutoring

I've been TAing and tutoring students for the past 5 semesters. Courses for which I've assisted or tutored include:

• Freshman Math/Physics
• Analog & Digital Communications
• Differential Equations
• Probability & Statistics
• Linear Algebra

Student Government

During the previous two years, I've served on CORe (Council of Olin Representatives), Olin's student government organization.

• VP Communication
• Class of 2008 Representative