Revamped Aerobody Design Process

Mar 2023 - Apr 2023

Description: As a member of the aero team at Blue Sky Solar Racing, while I was working on the airfoil parameterization I had the chance to dive deep in the the design process used by Blue Sky Solar in designing a car. I realized the inefficiency in the design process and set out to create a new process which resulted in more prospective designs faster. The earlier design process functioned as such; the aero team was to come up with two designs each week during the design process period and send that design to other sub-teams for approval. The inefficiency arises that many designs submitted were to be outright rejected by the other sub-teams for not having enough array space, not being draftable, not having enough space for the driver and the motor box, etc. That is why I had an in depth conversation with each sub-team lead about the basic requirements each team requires for the car and explain the aero team members these design requirements so that the prospective aerobody designs were more robust. Through this experience I learnt the intricacies of solar car design as well as the very important piece of knowledge that no matter how theoretically robust a design is if it is not feasibly manufacturable it is not a good design.

Ghana Garbage Sorter

Jan 2023 - Mar 2023

Description: We interacted with the Ghanian community as part of a design course and made a small scale model fully automated garbage sorter to help the garbage sorting issue. The sorter can separate organic, inorganic; metal, non-metal and heavy, light garbage.

Role: I led the mechanical and structural division of the team and was assigned the role of designing, CADing and fabricating the structural and mech aspects of the sorter. I was also responsible for testing the final prototype. A notable moment from my project experience was when I designed a wire curtain which would function as a conductivity test as well as open/close based on whether non-metal or metal garbage is in contact with the wire curtain.

Automated Kalimba Player

Feb 2023

Description: This Project was part of a make-a-thon in which participants had 24 hrs to come up with a design for a given category and make the physical project. The category my group and I chose was music. We made the Auto-Kalimba which is an automatic kalimba player in which inputting kalimba tabs outputted actual music played on the kalimba.

Role: Having the project divided into three subsystems dealing with the software, electrical and struct-fab. I was in-charge of the struct-fab aspect which dealt with designing and CADing the 3 axis gear servo system, the structural supports which hold up the gear system as well as fabricating the entire project using wood cutting and 3d printing. The gear system contained two servos moving the chassis in the y axis direction, one servo moving the hammer in the x axis and one small servo moving the hammer in the y-z plane to hit the kalimba tines. Allowing 3 degrees of freedom; two translational and one rotational DoF.