One of my favorite projects that I’ve done completely is Stomp Key.

Stomp Key’s original circuit was designed and proved on a breadboard inside a guitar pedal enclosure.

I’m very proud of this simple and small PCB that I designed and populated by hand. The board itself has a small micro controller, which I wrote firmware for and programmed with a programmer that I also built and programmed myself. The micro controller allows Stomp Key to emulate any number of key combinations programmed by the user.

The first printed prototype enclosure was done in PLA on my FDM 3D printer.

The second working prototype functions flawlessly and I still use it. The total time from idea to this second working prototyping was less than 30 days. The first proof of concept was working within a few hours of the idea.

Here is Stomp Key’s video from a crowdfunding website, it shows what Stomp Key can do as well as highlight its applications.

This is my old 1998 Acura Integra, Over the course of a year I increased the engine’s output by approximately 300% while maintaining 26 MPG. During this time I modified the suspension to decrease wheel hop during hard acceleration, which can cause serious damage to every component on the vehicle. Stiffer springs, adjustable upper A-arms, and traction bars were added to tame wheel hop and traction loss.

The engine is a 2.0l B20B4 out of a Honda CRV, originally produced 142 horsepower and 133 ft lbs of torque from the factory. It produced 430 horsepower and 340 ft lbs of torque at the wheels at 5500 RPM on 24 psi and 93 octane gasoline.

In addition to the exhaust manifold and wastegate seen here, there is a T60-1 turbocharger, 720cc fuel injectors, air to air cooler, fuel regulator, 255l/hr fuel pump, and a modified ecm that accepts eprom for tuning.

When you don’t have a tool or the money to buy one sometimes you make your own way. In this case I don’t own a pipe bender, this bend was made by cutting a straight pipe into pie sections with a specific angle so that when reassembled it would give the needed angle and radius to clear components in the engine bay.

After selling the car the new owner accidentally loosened one of the injector wires while installing a more capable ecm. The result was a lean condition whenever the wire had a bad connection, quickly becoming hot and burning the piston into an egg shape.

Using an old Android tablet, cheap tablet case, head unit adapter and small audio amplifier I was able to take my 1998 Honda CRV into the 21st century.

It almost looks like it belongs there doesn’t it?

This green pickup utilized an extremely large 76mm turbocharger and a custom made draw through carburetion system. I fabricated the exhaust manifolds, y-pipe and adapter for the turbocharger and its supporting components(wastegate, exhaust stack…). This pickup ran on E85 alcohol, the power output is unknown.

Inspired by a video I watched by Daniel Shiffman of The Coding Train (toot toot) about Inverse Kinematics. Daniel mentioned he liked the idea of a Kinematic robot. So, I created an application which utilizes Inverse Kinematics to control a dynamically scalable multi segment robot.

Here’s a video of it, it’s one of my favorite projects.

2 channel servo control from an Android phones head phone was a concept I created from July 1, 2015 – July 7

4 pole TRRS plug that is used to transmit the signal.

After completing the servo control I decided I could use the phones sensor data and servo app to make a stabilized camera.

I’ve been knocking around the idea of using this application to control and RC aircraft.

Screen shot of AndroPilot, my most recent project.

AndroPlane utilizes the phone on board audio hardware(as well as a multitude of on board sensors) to generate a low latency PWM signal that can be interpreted by RC servos via the Audio headphone jack. The application can also act as the remote via wifi, if signal is lost by the plane it has the capability to autonomously return to where it was launched as well as loiter and travel via GPS way points.

Testing AndroPlane’s shortest turn decision with autonomous “Return to Home” feature.

Testing AndroPlane’s PID settings.

Brobot was concept of my younger brothers. It is a web controlled raspberry pi rover that you can use to explore our house. I designed the original frame and drive programming.

Version 2 became a bit more flashy when my older brother decided to help design the body. I added a grabber for obvious reasons.

And (messy) version 3, after my younger brother decided it needed a longer battery life as well as charging and battery monitoring capabilities. The batteries used are LiFePO4, they have a high energy density with superior safety when compared to a more energy dense LiPo battery. With the new batteries Brobot can run for 8-10 hours before needing to be docked for charging

This is my arduino based quadracopter project. The frame was made using a FDM style printer and some cheap screws from home depot.

The brains of this machine is a micro controller named the ardupilot. Here you can see the 6 axis MPU6050 gyro/accelerometer sensor used for orientation.

An arduino based fixed wing aircraft which will utilize the same controller as my quadcopter.

This is a more refined version of brobot. With calculated wheel sizes, motor rpm and torques, as well as power consumption, weight and battery capacities.

This project is still in the very early stages, I am currently trying to use a small transceiver to communicate from my computer to the MicroQuad.

2 channel servo control from an Android phones head phone was a concept I created from July 1, 2015 – July 7

4 pole TRRS plug that is used to transmit the signal.

After completing the servo control I decided I could use the phones sensor data and servo app to make a stabilized camera.

I’ve been knocking around the idea of using this application to control an RC aircraft.

DataDisplay was an app request from a friend who needed/wanted to monitor many different parameters on a high performance vehicle. I utilized an Arduino micro for the data acquisition and the smart phone to interpret this data and display it with almost no latency.

A few Screen shots of what the user actually is seeing, all of the objects on the display are dynamic. I’m particularly proud of the floating numbers.

And finally a video of it running, I’m using potentiometers to simulate sensors. During this project I also created a new simple method to send numbers larger than 255 using an 8 bit data rate.

Screen shot of AndroPilot, my most recent project.

AndroPilot utilizes the phone on board audio hardware(as well as a multitude of on board sensors) to generate a low latency PWM signal that can be interpreted by RC servos via the Audio headphone jack. The application can also act as the remote via wifi, if signal is lost by the plane it has the capability to autonomously return to where it was launched as well as loiter and travel via GPS way points.

The first FDM 3D printer that I assembled was a Printrbot Jr. Its print volume wasn’t large enough, I extended its axis, and modified the firmware to accept the extra space, while I was rooting around in there I also changed the maximum extruder temp so that I could use polycarbonate filament.

My younger brother broke the bezel surrounding his door handle, I made him a new one in blue.

This is a full size model of a 1911 handgun frame printed at a 75 micron resolution.

Much of my large format delta style FDM printer will use printed parts.