Professional Work
Acoustic Levitation
Using sound waves generated from opposing sources, an acoustic levitator can float small objects in the air, typically 1-3mm diameters spheres. These can be solid objects like plastic and metal or even liquids like water and specialized pharmaceuticals. I have been a part of the team developing this instrument at Materials Development Inc and in 2015 even had the opportunity to share this device with Destin of Smarter Every Day in association with American Idol.
Aerodynamic Levitation
Using a stream of flowing gas through a conical nozzle, an aerodynamic levitator can float small objects in the air, typically 1-3mm diameter sphere. These samples are solid are room temperature and have high viscosity and surface tension when molten. This system utilizes an integrated 400W CO2 laser to heat samples up to 3000°C. I was part of the team developing this instrument at Materials Development Inc which lead to some international trips to India and Germany to aid in installation and training.
Swim Cap Drying Rack
After kicking off a major lifestyle change and losing my first 25lbs, I was drawn to the world of Triathlon and dove in head first. Along the way I designed and 3D printed a small stand to serve as a drying rack for my swim cap to avoid mold and mildew buildup. After receiving some positive comments, I looked into turning my Swim Cap Drying Rack into a commercial product. This lead to a multi-year journey with many ups and down and a whole heap of lessons learned. Check back for updates, as I plan to release files and instructions so people can print their own. More details and ordering info SwimCapDryer.com
United.com
Helping to connect people to the world, I joined the United.com homepage product team in 2019. I serve as a business analyst helping to solve tactical day to day problems within the scrum product team while also taking a strategic approach to aligning the product backlog and roadmap to the overall business objectives coming from executive leadership. As part of the Atmos design system team, I’ve had a unique opportunity to bring together devops, eQA, outside consultants, and multiple internal product teams. Visit United.com to see our team’s awesome work!
‘Atmos’ Design System
United began implementing a design system, named Atmos, in conjunction with a larger platform modernization effort to improve the look and feel of United.com and the United mobile app. What started as a small project coordination task has evolved into serving as interim scrum master helping stand up an internal design system product team. I’ve been exposed to more design and UI/UX than I could have imagined, in no small part due to working with Josh Clark, Brad Frost, and their talented team of producers, designers, and developers.
I used to play with high power lasers
We wondered how bad it would be if we ever came in contact with the laser, so we tested it with some chicken.
Spoiler alert: it would be very bad, but don’t take my word for it…
Just for Fun
Board Game Meetup
I co-host a board game Meetup group with over 1000 members. We meet every other Wednesday at Konak Pizza and Grill at 7pm to make new friends and play fun board games. Roughly 20 awesome people attend each event with a mix of regulars and newcomers. The group has been running for over three years and is still going strong. We play a wide mix of games that are usually on the light- to medium-weight side, though occasionally a small group will play a real heavy-hitter. Some of my favorite games? I’d have to say Roll Player, Gloomhaven, and The 7th Continent.
In Progress Projects
Silicone Molding
I’m starting to experiment with silicone molds and can’t wait to share my experience soon!
Body of Motion Coat
More detail coming soon, but if you’ve seen the Robin Williams classic film Toys, then you might know what I have in mind.
Schlieren Imaging
Using a standard camera and special imaging techniques, anyone can see small changes in air pressure and temperature. More detail coming soon on Hackaday.
Completed Projects
NMBR 9 Box
A 3D printed box for the board game NMBR 9 (aka Number 9). I love the colorful box the game comes in, however it is big and full of empty space. This box, along with a customer paper sleeve for the cards, makes it easier to bring to game night. I would have opted to orient the card slot vertically, but I was limited by the size of my printer’s bed. Feel free to print your own for personal use!
NI USB-845X Talk
National Instruments offers two USB devices designed to aid in SPI and I2C communication, the USB-8451 and USB-8452. These devices share the NI-845X driver set. In a ten minute presentation given at a local Chicago LabView usergroup meeting, I presented the capabilities and shortcoming of these devices. The key takeaway is this: do not buy the USB-8451 for any new projects, however the USB-8452 is a fine device if you understand its capabilities. Check out my slides here (pdf).
Bike Shelf
A custom oak shelf unit made from a single 1” x 6” oak board hand cut and carefully aligned to hide changes in the grain. Designed to hold my cycling accessories, it features a shelf for my helmet and another shelf for miscellaneous items such as water bottles, sun screen, and common tools. Wood pegs provide places to hang sunglasses, headphones, hats, and other light objects.
Wood dowels act as a crude spline to join the boards together and strength to the shelves.
Molten UO2 Experiment
When presented with the opportunity to melt nuclear fuel at Argonne National Lab, my team took full advantage. The initial work quickly lead to a paper in the journal Science. Follow on work is planned to study molten plutonium oxide. Read more at Science.
3D Printed Syringe Driver
Commercial syringe drivers are large, bulky, and expensive. I designed a cheap and compact syringe driver for a project and have shared the details online. See more on my Hackaday project page. I received honorable mention for this in Hackaday’s 3D Printed Gear contest.
Synrad i401 Laser Data Scraping
Synrad i401 CO2 lasers provide an HTML interface to view laser status data, however Synrad does not provide documentation on how to access this data outside of a web browser. The raw data can be accessed with an HTTP Post request which returns a long array of unidentified values. By looking through their code, I have identified the meaning of most of these values. See more on Github.
Siglent LabView Drivers
Siglent provides free LabView drivers for their function generators and oscilloscopes to aid in communicating with the devices over USB. I have created a few additional drivers for missing VISA calls, and I have modified a few drivers to allow for more modularity and flexibility. See more on Github.