Projects

Built because I wanted to.

The projects I take on because I want to — from a daily-driver moped to an ESP32-powered display and a from-scratch RC plane. Plus the earlier work that taught me CAD and fabrication before I had formal training.

BOLT Electric Race Motorcycle · Oct 2022–May 2026

Chassis Design, Fairings & Admin Lead

I joined Virginia Tech's BOLT electric motorcycle race team as a chassis engineer, designing and analyzing the Emrax 248 (400kW) motor mount and switching its material from steel to aluminum for 6 lbs of weight savings. Alongside the chassis work, I took on primary ownership of BOLT VI's bodywork — modeling the fairings in CAD, splitting them into printable sections, and carrying each panel through 3D printing, wet carbon fiber layup, bonding, and paint. My senior year I stepped into the Admin Lead role, leading a team of 100+ engineers with a mid-five-figure build budget and growing membership from 55 to 120.

Full BOLT write-up
BOLT VI electric race motorcycle
Summer 2024–Present

1997 Honda Elite 50 — Moped Restoration

A few friends and I got hooked on building out mopeds as cheap, fun daily transportation around campus. I picked up a non-running '97 Honda Elite 50 with good mod potential and brought it back to life with a performance clutch and flywheel, retuned CVT gearing, and a performance exhaust. Since fall 2024, it's been my everyday way to get to class.

Full moped write-up
1997 Honda Elite 50 — restored moped
ESP32 · RGB LED Matrix

Wi-Fi Live Stock Ticker

Built for a friend studying finance, this display pairs two 64x32 RGB LED matrices with an ESP32 to show live stock prices, the date, and the time. It pulls ticker data from the FMP API, and a simple local web server lets you change which of up to 10 tickers are shown. This was my first real dive into microcontrollers and a deliberate departure from mechanical-only projects.

Full stock ticker write-up
Family Project

Pool Equipment Fence with Pipe Avoidance

My parents' new house came with pool equipment sitting in plain view, and they wanted it screened off without disturbing anything underground. I scanned the existing foundation and modeled the known pipe runs so we could lay out fence post locations that looked evenly spaced from every angle — without drilling into anything we shouldn't.

Once the layout was dialed in on screen, my dad and I built the fence ourselves and added shrubbery around it afterward to finish the look.

Full pool fence write-up
Pool equipment fence — finished with shrubbery
Favorite Project

Hokiebird 3D Scan to Statue

If you've spent any time around Virginia Tech, you've seen the Hokie statues that sit outside local restaurants and shops. My parents love this mascot, so I scanned one as a gift.

The scanning software kept losing tracking partway through, so I ended up with five or six separate scans instead of one clean pass. I brought all of them into Blender and manually stitched and smoothed the pieces back into a single statue. After a 36-hour print, I had an 8" replica — my personal favorite project, and one I've since reprinted and given to more than 40 friends and family.

Full Hokiebird write-up
Army of 3D printed Hokiebird statues
Original Design · RC / Aerospace

RC Cessna 172 — 3D Printed Airplane

Most RC builds start from a kit; I wanted to design my own, loosely based on the Cessna 172. The current version skips yaw control deliberately — my first design, proving the rest of the airframe works before adding complexity. I estimated center of gravity, lift force, and takeoff speed, and the CAD CG lines up well with the physical model in the X/Y plane, though the 3D-printed build shifted things slightly on the Z axis.

Full Cessna write-up
3D printed Cessna 172 RC airplane — assembled fuselage
Class Project · Servo-Driven

Tidy T-Shirt Folder

For a class challenge to design something that "makes college students' lives easier," our team built a semi-automatic shirt folder with three folding flaps, each driven by its own servo motor. I designed the folding mechanism and the three-flap layout, and the working prototype successfully folded a shirt on its first run, before any tuning.

Full TIDY write-up
TIDY semi-automatic t-shirt folder — completed prototype
Earlier Work

Where it started.

Modeling exercises, reverse-engineering practice, a backyard foundry, and projects that taught me CAD and fabrication before I had formal training. Rougher around the edges, but where it all started.

Finished aluminum casting — 1994 anniversary gift
Homemade foundry furnace Mk2
Furnace running at temperature
7th Grade

1994 Anniversary Casting

My parents got married in 1994. For their anniversary, my dad and I built a backyard aluminum foundry from scratch — a custom-made forge and burner — and poured molten aluminum into a negative sand mold shaped from a 3D print I designed. The result was a solid aluminum piece representing that year, gifted to my mom.

3D printed model piston — desk toy
~8th Grade

3D Printed Model Piston

A desk-toy 4-stroke engine piston with pushrod-actuated intake and exhaust valves, built early on to learn the basics of CAD.

Wii II (Wiiii) concept — game controller redesign
Freshman Year, High School

Wii II (Wiiii) Game Console

A freshman design assignment: reimagine a product for 2020. I gave the Wii Remote an adaptive display that changes with the game being played.

Turbocharger cross-section CAD model
Learning Project

Turbocharger

A semi-accurate impeller and housing modeled with a cross-section to show the air-fluting of the impeller — pure CAD and turbo-fundamentals practice.

Client Commission

Pelican Box with Firearm Components

A concept video and rough animation commissioned by a client to show how their product would be displayed inside a Pelican-style case.

Playground CAD model
Zoo CAD model
Piston CAD model
Various

Assorted Early Models

A grab bag of other models that don't have enough detail or utility to warrant their own card — ask if you're curious about any of them.