Engineering Projects

Spark - Social Media Platform to
Create Change

Built at TreeHacks 2024

Spark is a platform that allows organizations to create a campaign outlining their mission, vision, and goals to encourage people with an existing spark who don't know what to do with their desire to make a difference to join their projects. Our platform works in two parts. First, organizations post their campaign, which is then added to a database holding all posted campaigns. Next, contributors can browse available campaigns to find one(s) that resonate with their goals. Once they identify organizations that do so, they can identify which of the organization's goals they are inspired to contribute to and gain spark points. These spark points work to (1) allow contributors to see the tangible impact they are having as a continuous endeavor and (2) motivate these individuals to continue their contributions with more organizations.

Technical Specifications

  • Languages: Next.js (React), Convex Backend/API (built on the front-end), Ant Design, Hosted on Vercel
  • Hackathon Participation: February 2024

Casmium - Sports Analytics Platform

Casmium, LLC

I am a co-founder and the CEO of Casmium, a sports management software startup founded in 2020 that's revolutionizing the world of baseball and softball with a simple Software-as-a-Service to streamline how teams collect, report, and analyze stats. Filling a crucial gap in the market, Casmium offers an affordable and user-friendly app to collect, report, and track crucial stats, saving coaches hours of time each season, empowering athletes with insightful analytics about their performance, and providing resources to parents to help their students in the recruitment process. By catering to a wide range of non-professional teams with limited resources, including often-overlooked softball teams, Casmium sets itself apart from competitors. With a mission to democratize sports statistics, Casmium is on track to transform the industry, already working with central Iowa high school teams and little league teams across Iowa, Colorado, and Georgia, while projecting significant growth in the near future.

Technical Specifications

  • Languages: React.js (analytics web app), React Native (score-keeping mobile app), Node.js (server-side code for API and calculations), HTML/CSS
  • APIs: Google Firebase (auth, functions, databasing, and hosting), Google Charts (data visualization)
  • Business Duration: February 2020-Present

CySat - Low Earth Orbit NASA CubeSat Satellite

AER E 494 - Make to Innovate (M2I) Program

CySat is Iowa State's NASA CubeSat program designed for students of all engineering majors to gain experience with astronautics and solve real-world scientific problems. NASA provides educational institutions with a partnership to create a working satellite with a NASA-given mission in exchange for a free launch to space. At ISU, CySat's current mission (CySAT-1) is responsible for measuring soil moisture content using a software-defined radio (SDR) in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). CySAT-1 has been developing at ISU for nearly ten years, with the final launch handoff anticipated for Summer 2024.

During my time on the project, I helped integrate software with satellite electronics to carry out the mission in space. My work included updating, troubleshooting, and documenting embedded code on the satellite's mission computer and creating a radio communication link between the satellite and the ground. The communication link uses amateur radio to send AX.25 packets between an onboard UHF transceiver and an SDR on the ground. These packets contain either ground station command requests, satellite command responses, or the satellite returning soil moisture measurement data. See my technical report below for a detailed description.

Technical Specifications

  • Project Duration: August 2022-August 2023
  • Experiences: Collaboration with interdisciplinary engineers, hands-on embedded systems engineering
  • Technologies: EnduroSat space-rated CubeSat hardware (Onboard Computer (OBC), UHF Transceiver, and Electrical Power System (EPS), and Antenna), STM32 Microcontroller, Serial/UART unit for the OBC, N200 Software-Defined Radio paired with GNU Radio modules
  • Languages: C, Python

MIPS Processors Design & Analysis

CPR E 381 Semester Project

A semester-long project where my colleague Tony Manschula and I designed three processors based on the MIPS Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) to understand the way processors are constructed and which design concepts (single-cycle versus pipelining) perform the most efficient. We applied concepts learned in CPR E 381 such as VHDL description language, MIPS assembly programming, processor pipelining, hazard detection and avoidance, and several in-depth applications of digital logic components. Our efforts resulted in three working VHDL designs that successfully run a MIPS program after months of critical thinking and design troubleshooting. We also were able to synthesize our designs and compare maximum clock speeds between all three designs. See the GitHub repository below to view the full project report and source code.

Technical Specifications

  • Languages: VHDL, MIPS Assembly
  • Technologies: MIPS Instruction Set Architecture (ISA), Single-Cycle & Pipelined Processor Concepts, QuestaSim Waveform Simulation
  • Class Duration: Spring 2023

Autonomous CyRide - Self-Driving Bus Embedded Systems Design

CPR E 288 Final Project

I combined my attained knowledge of digital logic and software engineering and collaborated with a team to design and prototype a small-scale automated public transit system. Using a iRobot Roomba Education kit, an on-board Microcontroller, and sensors, we designed a working robot to model the Ames "CyRide" system as if it were entirely self-driving. My team learned how to effectively work together to solve our complex engineering challenge and apply the tools and technologies we were given in class to present a working demo of our idea. To learn more, see our project proposal linked below.

Technical Specifications

  • Languages: C, ARM Assembly
  • Technologies: TI Tiva TM4C Microcontroller with ARM Cortex CPU, iRobot iCreate Robot Kit
  • Class Duration: Fall 2022

Manual Register Sorting with FPGA

CPR E 281 Final Project

For the culmination of my Digital Logic class, I utilized an Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to allow a user to store two lists of information and swap values between them. This program has the potential for real-world applications like automating shopping lists, tasks lists, and agendas. A user is allowed to enter in 16 numbers (0-15) of their choosing using on-board switches and save them into one of two lists called registers. The user can then swap saved values between registers as desired, preserving the values they entered in the new register locations. I showcased my understanding of designing logic circuits in both Intel Quartus Prime CAD software and with the Verilog hardware description language. To learn more, read my project report below.

Technical Specifications

  • Languages: Verilog HDL
  • Technologies: Teraisc Altera DE2-115 (Cyclone IV) FPGA Board, Intel (Altera) Quartus Prime FPGA Design Software, Questa ModelSim (Waveform Analysis)
  • Class Duration: Spring 2022

ProjectDSM - Re-creation of
Des Moines, Iowa in Minecraft

Sean Eddy, the creator of a realistic re-creation of Downtown Des Moines, Iowa in the popular video game, Minecraft, invited me to assist him in hosting and marketing his project to the public. While he focuses on his design and 3D, digital modeling, I am primarily involved in day-to-day management of logistics such as web hosting, domain/DNS management, server hosting, and software maintenance. I've programmed a couple of features to make our community feel unique, including a plugin to sync the game's time and weather conditions with real-life Des Moines. Our project managed to make our local news and sparked players across Central Iowa to visit Sean's work.

Technical Specifications

  • Website: HTML/CSS, Bootstrap
  • Minecraft Plugins: Java with the SpigotMC API
  • Operations: Domain and DNS Management, 3rd-party Server hosting
  • Project Duration: 2017-2021

Urbandale Community Theatre - Website

For the local community theatre in Urbandale, IA, I designed and deployed a website and logos to use for marketing and advertising their summer theatre production. The organization needed a website overhaul after previously using a poorly maintained WordPress custom site and CPanel host/backend. To ensure the Board of Directors could maintain the site in the long term with their limited technical background, I made sure to transfer their resources to no-code applications with minimal tech debt that are suitable for users of all kinds, particularly small business owners like the UCT Board.

Technical Specifications

  • Applications: Wix, Adobe, Google Workspace
  • Project Duration: March-May 2023

Alaska Virtual Airlines - Website

I was commissioned to design a website for promoting Alaska Virtual Airlines: an online community of flight simulator players mimicking the real-world operations of Alaska Airlines. The website contains information about the airline's operations, staff, and how to apply for a virtual pilot position. I developed an intial design (that was later tweaked) including live airline statistics linked to AlaskaVA's information system. These can be found under the "Creating an Airline" section.

Technical Specifications

  • Languages: HTML/CSS, Bootstrap, jQuery
  • Project Duration: July-August 2021

Estafeta Virtual Airlines - Flight Management System

I was commissioned to manage the IT system of Estafeta Virtual Airlines: an online community of flight simulator players mimicking the real-world operations of Estafeta Carga Aérea (an air cargo company). Each virtual airline requires two software components: An online platform to send analytics and perform "airline business" and an Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS, referring to the systems used in real commercial aviation logistics). Customizing an existing open-source framework, phpVMS.net, I developed a web presence and pilot portal for Estafeta Virtual to recruit prospective pilots, track employee revenue, and manage cargo/passenger service. Additionally, I contributed a patch to a work-in-progress, open-source ACARS program by SimSolutions. I additionally facilitated hosting and maintaining Estafeta's platform during their operation.

Technical Specifications

  • Languages: Lavarel/PHP (what phpVMS is built on), HTML/CSS, JavaScript, Python
  • Project Duration: July-August 2020

Existentialism Visualizer - Interactive Educational Tool

An interactive visualizer on the concept of Existentialism for educational or recreational use. I created this project for one of my high school teachers to use in her future Language Arts classes. I primarily strived for conveying this advanced literature and social concept in an interactive, easily understandable, and modern format to increase appeal to students and take steps towards improving classroom resources.

Technical Specifications

  • Languages: Gatsby.js (a toolchain of React.js), Bootstrap
  • APIs: Framer Motion (complex animations)
  • Project Duration: December 2020-January 2021
Feed The Ball screenshot

Feed The Ball - Video Game

Feed The Ball was my introduction to the world of Unity 3D game design and C# programming. My goal was to create a simple, yet entertaining, 3D platformer and later on submitted this project to the College Board for the AP Computer Science Principles exam.
I further expanded this project by attempting two distinct goals: accept donations from players to essentially "develop for charity" and attempt to implement a machine learning model in some way. My idea was to create a model that would generate additional game levels based on the player's skill. This did not end successfully, however I gained plenty of fundamental knowledge about Machine Learning and how to implement models with source code.

Technical Specifications

  • Language: Unity Engine with C#
  • Project Duration: Started February 2019, resumed and completed for AP Computer Science Principles in May 2019
Atari Breakout screenshot

Brickmash (Atari Breakout) - Video Game

A simple version of Atari Breakout I built several years ago as a part of my middle school's Hyperstream club. This was one of my very first programs and I still enjoy it to this day despite its age.

Technical Specifications

  • Language: The purest form of JavaScript in the world

Other GitHub Projects

For more source code and hobby projects, check out my work on GitHub. I've worked on a variety of software projects, big and small, to broaden my toolbox in numerous technologies and practice critical engineering skills.

Technical Specifications