Other Projects
Process
LifeTime.
The "LifeTime" time management app was developed for the 2020 congressional app challenge. It was designed in partnership with Mario Sumali in Xcode, using Swift. The final product was filmed and explained in a video that was presented to the then congresswoman of New Mexico's second district, Deb Haaland. She picked LifeTime as the winner for NM's second district, over three other competitors. This link will bring you to the video presentation that won.
High X-ray resistant vacuum viewport.
This vacuum viewport was designed for use on the particle accelerator "Vulcan." Its design was commissioned by an electrical engineer at Sandia National Labs who wanted to take photos of certain physics phenomena on the inside of the accelerator chamber. The unique engineering requirements for this project were:
- Resistant to high energy x-rays of 100-300 keV.
- Fully vacuum sealed in a UHV environment.
- Manufacturable in less than 4 weeks.
- Made for use with an existing GoPro Hero 5 camera.
- Must be an addition to the existing chamber design.
That lass requirement, the timeline, was the reason for not buying an existing viewport. It is possible that this solution still could have worked, however the customer still wanted a bespoke design.
The customer had already picked out and purchased some 3/16" 20% lead glass they wanted the design to be made with, and had done some basic calculations to determine it should be resistant enough to the high energy density environments in the accelerator. The solution was quite simple, sandwich the existing lead glass with some borosilicate or polycarbonate for added strength, with and O-ring to hold vacuum, and stick a camera enclosure on the outside. FEA was needed to verify the strength of the lead glass, and the thickness of borosilicate necessary to hold vacuum safely. The material properties were found in two research papers, and then the analysis conducted with ABAQUS. It was run both statically and with some parameters for a fracture mechanics analysis, and then the end result was verified with hand calculations. We were quite confident that 1/4" thick borosilicate with the 3/16" lead glass would provide a factor of safety in excess of 10 (the actual FOS varied depending on the kind of analysis or the hand calculations), and so the final design could proceed. The CAD software used was CREO, with windchill for file management, and the final design is shown in Figure 2. A figure showing the images taken with the viewport would be shown, however unfortunately thats not possible due to the images being CUI.
Polycarbonate Doors for the MUL.
The MUL is the "Multistage Underground Lift," a longterm project at Sandia Labs in the pulsed power department aimed at improving the functionality and safety of the Z-Machine facility. The acronym is rather apt as it is what it sounds like, a large very complex underground lift with multiple stages to serve multiple functions. The piece of the puzzle I contributed was some simple sliding doors for storage compartments on the side of the MUL. Designed during summer 2024, the doors came in three sized all with the same functionality. The engineering requirements were:
- Sturdy enough to prevent heavy equipment from falling out of the compartments they covered.
- Three specific sizes.
- As cheap and easy to manufacture as possible. This may seem like a strange requirement because almost anywhere in the world its a given, but this is not always the case at national laboratories such as Sandia. Funding can be much easier to come by when your client is the United States government, and so often money flies more freely on projects such as these.
- Transparent for user friendliness.
The first step of this design was to determine the thickness of the polycarbonate necessary, and the type/amount of reinforcement, to guarantee user safety. This was done with the built in FEA software in CREO: CREO Simulate. It was determined that 1/4" polycarbonate, with reinforcement from steel angles on top and bottom was necessary.
Using the information from the FEA, combined with the existing geometry of the MUL that the door needed to fit around, the requirements were narrowed enough for the design to proceed. The final doors consisted of 0.25" polycarbonate sheets stuck to powder coated iron angles with very high bondage (VHB) tape. The doors slid satisfyingly into t-slotted angles that could be acquired on McMaster-Carr, and the whole system could be bolted to the side of the MUL structure. The iron angles could magnetically latch when the door was fully opened, and then be closed simply by applying more than 10lbs of force opposite the direction of the magnets. The doors were low cost and easy to manufacture, and eight of them are currently being built to be used by technicians on the MUL at Sandia National Labs.
2025 Solar Decathlon: A Energy Efficient take on the new Maricopa County Election Facility.
This project is barely at its beginnings, however there is already much to tell. As can be seen on their website, the goal of the Solar Decathlon is to design a "high-performance, low-carbon building that mitigates climate change." I am currently 1 of the 9 members of ASU's 2025 Solar Decathlon team, "The Steward Group", as we hope to steward the natural environment well. We are made up of 5 engineers and 4 architects, sponsored by DLR group, and working with two ASU professors. The official competition has barely started, however the architects are already well on their way with design studies and preliminary designs. The engineers are following closely behind with our own engineering and energy studies. This is going to be a long and exciting endeavor, keep up with real time updates at our instagram!
Result
These projects span from my first real engineering endeavor all the way to my most recent pursuit. During these four years I have learned many invaluable skills and plenty of lessons through mistakes. Each project had its ups and downs, and each changed who I was a bit. I am eager to see where the next four years take me!
