Classes

I am in the progress of completing an S.B in Mechanical and Ocean Engineering. The classes that I have taken so far are:

General Institute Requirements (90% complete!-Physics 1 &2, Multivariable Calculus, Chemistry, DiffEq, Bio, Humanities etc.)

MechE classes
2.001 Mechanics of Materials
2.002 Mechanics of Materials 2
2.003 Dynamics
2.004 Controls
2.005 Thermal Fluids Engineering 1
2.006 Thermal Fluids Engineering 2
2.007 Design and Manufacturing 1
2.016 Hydrodynamics
2.S994 Electronics for Mechanical Engineers
2.167 Hands-On Marine Robotics
2.612 Marine Power and Propulsion
2.671 Measurement and Instrumentation 1
18.085 Computational Science and Engineering
2.013 Engineering Systems Design
2.014 Engineering Systems Development
2.167 Hands-On Marine Robotics
2.017 Design of Electromechanical Robot Systems
2.979 Undergraduate Teaching Assistant
2.S994 (Listener) Biomimetics, Biomechanics and Bio-inspired design
2.086 Numerical Computation for Mechanical Engineers

I also have taken all of the Terrascope Classes when I was a freshmen and now I am a TA for the Radio Class. I traveled to Sirsi, India and to Sarapiqui, Costa Rica with this class and have worked on several projects with the Terrascope Community.I have mainly focused on the radio end of the program, and produced a 22 min piece about Sirsi and sustainable agriculture with my classmates in Terrascope Radio. You can listen to it here.


I will try and use this page to document the classes that have a more hands-on component or just other cool things we did.

2.671 Measurement and Instrumentation

This class is structured around a central "Go Forth and Measure Project" that has students design an experiment and validate a model or test a hypothesis with the data that they collect. My project was on "Dynamics of a Water-Propelled Rocket"

 I used a high speed video camera to record various launches at different pressures and a frame-rate tracking program to find a correlation between peak acceleration and initial pressure.The program was done in conjunction with some of the kids that I worked with at the Saturday Thing and actually used their rocket in my tests.

2.S994 Electronics for Mechanical Engineers

This class was offered for the first time to alleviate the panic that MechE students have when they encounter electronics for the first time in 2.007. The class was taught by Prof. Derek Rowell and TA'd by Shane Colton (of MITERS fame) and it was one of my favorite classes so far. Each week we constructed a different device, from scales to flashlights. The class culminated in a line-following robot competition. Our robot suffered some "technical difficulties" of unknown origin the day before the competition and seemed hell bent on driving anywhere, but on the line. The pizza party after the competition made everything better though!

The Final Competition

2.167 Hands-On Marine Robotics

This class was taught by Prof. Franz Hover (who is also the adviser for the Marine Robotics Team) and gave us the chance to select our own projects to pursue throughout the semester. I ended up spending most of this semester learning about the Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth (CTD) sensor for the Chevron Glider project and learning how it worked.

This data is considered the most fundamental measurement in Oceanography so it is kinda important that our glider can successfully record this. I designed a circuit using a MAX232 chip to translate the RS-232 Serial coming out of the CTD to the TTL levels that would make the Arduino not blow up. Which is always a good thing.

 I ended up putting the CTD into a "cage" made out of  scrap Aluminum to give the $15,000 sensor a little more protection when we lower it off a boat. Since someone actually trusted me enough to not kill it.

The serial converter lives with an arduino, a Sparkfun OpenLog, and a 12 V Nickel Metal Hydride Battery in the waterproof box. and the results...

are totally NOT seawater. Unfortunately, I finished this project in mid-December and I had absolutely no inclination to test this in the Charles in the middle of a Boston winter. I am  theoretically going someplace warm soon (I hope its Miami!!) with Marine Robotics Team soon where we can test this out and some of the other robots. So the CTD testing is currently on the backburner, but hopefully there will be more to come soon...

2.007 Design and Manufacturing 1

This is the first project based class I have taken at MIT. The majority of the MechE Sophomores build an arduino based robot to compete in a variety of challenges in addition to attending lectures about gears, belts, etc. This year's theme is a Midway, so the robots have to hit a strongman bell, inflate a balloon, spin a ferris wheel and collect carnival tickets to score points. I was not very enthusiastic about making a shoebox sized arduino menace (and the clowns holding the balloons scare me), so I took one of the special sections. I am in the Electric Vehicle Section taught by Charles G. Each student is given 300 bucks to purchase parts for their homebuilt electric vehicle. There are a handful of scooter, a longboard, go-karts, and a tricycle all being built for a drag race in May. I teamed up with Jackie to build:

Yes, I did spend the time to make us a logo.

We have combined our resources (including budgets!) to build a go-kart based on the largest "Melon" class motor from Turnigy. I won't give away too much, since there will definitely be some posts dedicated to the development of MelonKart in the near future.