Class Projects
Grant Wood Arcade Game
During my sophomore year, myself and 3 teammates designed and built an arcade game visually inspired by “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” and functionally inspired by the Chrome Dinosaur Game, it had the player control Paul Revere to jump and duck to avoid bushes, British soldiers, and birds.
The project was Arduino based, and used a servo and linkage to actuate Paul; with motors and ring gears to move the obstacles. The presence of two rings allowed for several minutes of play before patterns were repeated.
As a part of this project, I wrote most of the code and assembled all of the electronics- which included creating my own Arduino communication protocol that was more reliable than options we found online. In all, it included four limit switches, a button, two gear motors, a servo, a speaker, and a proximity sensor.
Mechanically, I designed and manufactured the gears, as well as their drive mechanism and accompanying support structure. The gears were made from laser-cut and laminated Masonite. The same method was used to create support for the motors.
Stirling Engine
I created a Stirling engine for a class project my Sophomore year of university. It was largely a manufacturing task, with a bit of design work regarding the legs and overall fitment.
I took full advantage of my school’s lathe, CNC mill, and sheet metal tools to build the majority of the project. I also sand casted the flywheel out of aluminum, and adjusted fitment with hand tools.
RF Oscillator
As a part of my electronics and instrumentation class, my groupmates and I re-created the RF oscillator from the Magnavox Odyssey. I assembled the breadboard and helped with the simulated version of the circuit.
The primary challenges with this project were deciphering the minimally detailed diagram, and adjusting components based on what we had available. The latter of the two was especially difficult as the final result was effectively scaling the entire circuit up.