Updated: July 12, 2012 Contact  
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Projects


These are some of the projects I've undertaken or am currently working on.

 

 

 

HIIPER - Fusion Studies Lab

HIIPER (Helicon Injected Inertial Plasma Electrostatic Rocket) is a new class of spacecraft thruster we are developing that I feel will change the way space thrusters are approached and designed. In its end state it will be a thruster and a fusion reactor rolled in one. I deal more with the aerospace side of the engine, specifically its thrust capability, the shape of the exhaust and its ability to accomplish missions, as well as building simulations, experiment and testing, and doing CAD work. Additionally, I'm learning about space propulsion as part of my graduate work in NPRE. The beauty about this lab is that when someone has a good idea, we can and are encouraged to implement it, and because of that our design/upgrade/build times have been very fast. This picture was prepared by me for a proposal. I joined this lab because of my interest and previous work in applying plasma principles to combustion based engines.

 


*Example of one of my CAD/Concept Art pieces of this engine.




Senior Design - Propulsion

Our Senior Design project for Aerospace was to design a mission to the second Lagrangian Point with respect to the Earth-Sun system (about 1.5 million km from Earth in the direction away from the sun). I was in charge of selecting an appropriate propulsion system for the launch vehicle, upper stages and reaction control systems. I initally selected the Falcon 1 from SpaceX, but due to course restrictions selected the Rockot, a Russian-European joint venture. In a close third came the Dnepr, a Russian repurposed ballistic missile. All three were capable of completing the mission, and working with our orbital machinist I designed a different mission trajectory to accomodate each vehicle's abilities. I was able to achieve a system that could effectively complete the mission and stayed well under our mission budget allowing for more funding for instruments and equipment.



*Example of one of my slides for presenting our mission.


Independent Propulsion Design

Over four years I independently designed a concept combustor for rockets, scramjets, and turbojets which let me put my classwork to use. It uses some more specialized math and design, but I have worked to show that it will significantly increase the thrust output of these systems. This design focuses on consuming normally unburnt fuel in any combustor. This design has also found some other uses outside of jet/rocket propulsion which are being explored jointly with the IEC research team.

This design is currently under review for funding.



*An example of my CAD work for this project.


Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) Propulsion Laboratory

I currently research with a group studying inertial electrostatic confinement for use in space thrusters. In this group I help run the experiments, design and replace components, and generally keep the lab running smoothly. I've also designed and helped build some diagnostic sensors to measure thrust and energy output of our engine, as well as done some computer-side work with recording data. Currently I am working on doing simulations of our engine to help streamline our design and produce faster results.



*CAD of a gridded energy analyzer I designed to make it easier to maintain and repair - cutting down our maintenance time from a few days to a matter of hours.


Design/Build/Fly - Propulsion Design

Design/Build/Fly (DBF) is an international competition that has dozens of applicants from around the world, and about 50 schools who compete yearly in either Wichita, Kansas at the Cessna facility or in Arizona at the Ratheon facility. The aircraft is a large remote-control airplane that has to fulfill certain design missions that change on a yearly basis.

No matter what the mission, the propulsion system weighs heavily in on the score and really dictates which plane is going to take home the prize. The only contest restriction was that the motors and propellors needed to be commercially available and could not be modified; but the combination of motor, propeller, speed controller, and battery pack would be the variables that we had to consider.

 

 


My role was to lead the team to design and test these systems. Our propulsion team did very well, and in my second year we achieved the second top flight score in the world; thanks in no small part to our propulsion design team, without whom the planes don't fly. During my time on them, UIUC always scored within the top 5 to top 10 for overall score.

Apart from engine design, I was also heavily involved in the construction of the aircraft. I operated the team's CNC foam cutter, which would create our wing molds for composite materials (carbon fiber, fiberglass, and kevlar). I also helped with the aircraft assembly, installed and operated telemetry that would measure all motor parameters which I would then use to clean up the design. I also did the technical writing in propulsion for the team reports we would turn in as part of the competition.


Smash for Haiti Logo



*Logo designed by Judd Ortiz


Smash for Haiti

An organization my friend, Judd Ortiz, and I founded to help the survivors of the Haitian earthquake.  We raised the 2nd highest amount in all the University of Illinois along with the combined efforts of Hendrick House, the building I am a resident advisor for. I was supported by my colleages in the RA staff, as well as the student government. 100% of the funds given were donated to Doctors Without Borders. I helped pick a charity that provided relief that couldn't be misused and that would do the best work with the funds raised, and I stand by the work we did.

You can see our page at www.smashforhaiti.org

You can see all events at www.illinoisforhaiti.org

 



Personal Electronics Lab

Before I took my course on Intelligent Mobile Navigation, I was working on some other electronics and controls devices I wanted to create and make myself. Trouble was, finding an available lab was troublesome and time consuming; so I took the liberty of making my own electronics tools to do all my building and testing in my own room! I was able to put together a power supply with variable voltage control from 2-22 volts, and an oscilliscope and thermocouple which could feed data directly into my desktop computer. After that, completing projects like the Highly Automatic Wind Tunnel (in UIUC Wiki Works) became possible, and you can even see my power supply in the photos in that article.

I was able to build these machines at a fraction of the cost it would have been to buy the actual lab-grade machines, and was able to get them to run at comparable reliability for my needs. I still use these tools today to make new gadgets and to try out new ideas. My latest gadget is making a relay system to have my computer control the lights in my room (and interfacing THAT with Twitter, or add voice activation through Windows 7). My latest major project with these tools is a water oscillator to separate hydrogen and oxygen.

 





MyHendrickHouse.com

To help us do our jobs as resident advisors faster, have greater communication, and work more efficiently, I set up a Google Apps account for Hendrick House and converted our reporting system over. We are now able to communicated with all students, keep track of building issues (and not just residential ones, we can handle maintenance issues, office duties, customer concerns, as well as current resident problems all fluidly and be able to keep track of any of these things from first report to resolution). I also set up a new student page for residents who want more information about what's happening in the building, what the food plan will be, among others. I did the initial set up, registration and got all the data into place, we now collectively maintain the site at www.myhendrickhouse.com. After seeing the pilot test work well with the RA staff, the management of Hendrick House and it's team company also converted their system over to Google Apps to take advantage of some of the tools we had in place.



Grainger: The Musical

Two of my coworkers and I have spent a good portion of 2010 writing an affectionate musical about the engineering library at the University of Illinois. Most of the songs used are parodies, and we wrote what I feel is a very touching story that sees life in this library from both the employees' and patrons' perspectives. We also got many of the staff on board with performing and supporting our work. A lot of creative work put in here from all of us, we all have respective strengths in certain genres of music, storytelling, and theater, and it was a very dynamic project that we still continue to work on in our free time.