Portfolio
Electromagnetic Mass Driver
The Idea
Mass drivers had been a sci-fi staple for decades, but in their current incarnation they were very long and used lots of infrastructure and energy.
As I experimented, I found that I could do without the maglev track entirely and just face my early prototypes directly up. I also ended up fusing the slugs in the coil gun with the momentum concentrator and almost had it acting like a trebuchet.
This was my first project, and also my largest in scope, I learnt so much by trying to make this happen, hiring engineers, going through accelerators, and actually building the prototypes myself.
While ultimately, I didn’t make it higher than 50 feet, the idea is solid and the physics make sense, I count myself lucky that I was able to spend three years doing something crazy.
I hope to return to this idea one day when I have the right team and infrastructure behind me to make this a reality.
Self - Cleaning Clothes
I spent lockdown during the pandemic attempting to create self-cleaning clothes. The idea was to weave copper wire into cotton fabric that was dyed with a ferromagnetic iron based dye. I experimented with different structures to develop this into a “synthetic muscle”.
I was hoping to weave these fabrics into clothing which would be coated with a hydrophobic coating. When a current would be applied to terminals in the fabric, the garment would “shake itself clean”.
over 7 months I made 90 prototypes. I built a special coiling machine just to combine copper and cotton thread. Unfortunately none of them lived up to my standards.
The closest I got was a series of small electromagnetic cylinders that would be applied to a shirt in vertical bands. I was finally able to produce the motion I wanted, but I shelved the project after I was unable to build a smaller more comfortable one.
Vacuum Engine
A large problem holding back electric air travel is the efficiency of propellers. As their velocity increases beyond a certain point, they become less and less efficient in the air.
My idea was to create a vacuum using two laterally balanced forces, and then to release that vacuum in the direction of motion. Basically using the vacuum as a capacitor to store energy and then to release it thousands of times per second.
My theory was that this design would be way more efficient than a similarly sized propeller at high speeds & rpms.
I created six prototypes over a five month period, my designs used a plunger to create a vacuum and had air enter from the sides.
Ultimately I decided that that it was too inefficient at the small scale to explore further
A machine I built to test my first prototypes by moving the plungers up and down
Playpath - Contract
Designer Kenny Arnold partnered with Kaboom & The Ralph C Wilson Jr Foundation for the Play Everywhere Challenge. Imagining new ways for children to play.
Kenny’s idea was to create a series of modular shapes so that the children could modify & create their own playground in a virtually unlimited series of combinations.
I was hired to help Fabricate, Assemble, & Transport the first prototype set to a center for underprivileged youth in Buffalo NY.
My scope of work included Welding, Lathework, Routing, Sanding, & Final Assembly.
Coffee Table
I made this coffee table for my old apartment. It was a “Poetree Table”.
I laser cut a poem about a tree onto it, and it was made of wood. I was very proud of that.
I bent and welded the legs together out of mild steel. The top is made out of 3 pine boards that I sanded, planed & joined.
