I design hardware that has to work.

Commercial gustometers deliver thin liquids at fixed volumes. The research team needed something that could handle a range of viscosities and still put the same dose on the tongue every single time — so it had to be built.

The problem

Taste research depends on stimulus consistency. If the delivered volume drifts between trials, the data is noise. Thicker fluids compound this: they lag, they cling, and they behave differently as the line warms up.

What I built

• A pump and valve arrangement sized for the viscosity range, rather than optimised for water
• Sensor feedback on delivery so each dose is verified rather than assumed
• Fail-safe features that halt delivery on out-of-range conditions instead of dosing a participant incorrectly
• A control layer that lets researchers script trial sequences without touching the hardware

Outcome

The instrument is in active use for research, producing consistent and reliable stimulus delivery across the fluid range it was specified for.

Researchers needed measurements off equipment that was never designed to be measured. That means retrofitting sensing into existing mechanical systems without changing how the equipment behaves under load.

Approach

Each instrument was a mechanical design problem before it was an electrical one — finding a load path to tap, mounting a sensor rigidly enough to trust it, and keeping the added hardware out of the user's way.

Manufacturing

Parts were made using whichever process fit the tolerance and material:

• Wire EDM for precise, hard-material features
• CNC machining for structural mounts
• Fibre metal laser cutting for sheet components
• 3D printing for fixtures, housings and rapid iteration

Outcome

Working data-acquisition systems feeding clean measurements to the research team, built from a mix of processes chosen per-part rather than per-project.

Rotamarka is a three-dimensional rotating powerline warning marker and bird diverter designed to make overhead wires, cables and conductors highly visible from every viewing angle. The custom drone payload carried and installed the marker without requiring a conventional crew to work directly at line height.

The payload was designed specifically to mount on Freespace Operations' Callisto 50 Multirotor. This heavy-lift octocopter is rated to carry an effective payload of up to 25 kg, making it a suitable platform for the installation mechanism, its control electronics and the Rotamarka being deployed.

My contribution

I designed the custom payload carrier board and contributed to the mechanical design of the deployment system as part of the wider engineering team. The electronics integrated the payload's power, signal and control requirements into hardware suitable for the weight and packaging constraints of the UAV.

Mechanical integration

The mechanical work focused on integrating the system beneath the Callisto 50, carrying the Rotamarka securely, positioning it against the target conductor and completing the installation while keeping the aircraft and payload stable. The payload had to remain light enough for practical flight while being rigid and repeatable during deployment.

Validation

The complete system progressed through integration and field testing on the drone platform, validating the carrier electronics and mechanical deployment approach under realistic operating conditions.

Hyperion is a custom carrier board built around the Radxa CM5 compute module. It consolidates the interfaces needed by Fliight Technologies' field-deployed systems into one palm-sized embedded platform, including compute nodes that offload intensive drone image processing and video-processing nodes for multi-camera environments.

Off-the-shelf carrier boards required external switches, regulators, adapters and breakout boards to provide the same capability. Combining those functions on one board reduced the system footprint, cabling and number of potential field failure points.

Integrated interfaces

• Networking: a five-port 100BASE unmanaged ethernet switch with Pulse magnetics isolation on every port
• Power: 14–36 V DC input through an XT60 connector, with regulated 13.6 V, 5.2 V and 3.3 V rails
• Communications: CANBUS transceivers for integration with motor controllers, sensors and industrial or automotive peripherals
• Remote connectivity: an M.2 slot for a replaceable 4G LTE modem
• Expansion: M.2 M-key PCIe, a four-port USB 2.0 hub, CM5 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, GPIO breakout and a dedicated future-expansion header

Design decisions

The wide input range lets Hyperion run directly from different battery packs or vehicle power rails. Integrating the ethernet switch removes a separate enclosure and its cabling, while CANBUS provides a shared real-time communications link to the rest of a deployed system. The modular LTE slot keeps cellular hardware replaceable without forcing a carrier-board redesign.

Result

A dense, field-ready carrier board that turns the Radxa CM5 into a complete embedded platform. One board provides the networking, power, communications and expansion that would otherwise require a stack of separate modules.

The aim was full autonomous operation rather than a remote-controlled mower: build a map of the operating area, localise within it, plan a route and navigate that route accurately enough to mow repeatably.

Navigation hardware

• LiDAR for SLAM mapping, obstacle perception and local navigation
• Holybro Pixhawk 6X for vehicle control and integration
• Holybro H-RTK ZED-F9P rover with an IP66 enclosure and RM3100 compass
• A dedicated RTK base station for centimetre-level positioning corrections

Combining local LiDAR perception with absolute RTK positioning gave the mower both the environmental awareness needed to navigate obstacles and a stable global position for repeatable coverage.

Result

The converted platform mapped and navigated autonomously, with the combined SLAM and centimetre-level RTK system operating effectively during testing.

The payload was designed to let an operator broadcast instructions or warnings from a UAV over populated outdoor locations. Likely operating environments included beaches, festivals and other large public spaces where a mobile elevated loudspeaker could reach people beyond the useful range of ground-based equipment.

Payload design

I designed the custom payload around the megaphone, integrating it beneath a large multirotor aircraft without obstructing the landing gear or destabilising the platform. The mounting structure had to position the speaker effectively while keeping its weight and centre of mass within the aircraft's practical limits.

The work progressed from CAD design through fabrication and aircraft integration, including a dedicated controller and status panel packaged with the payload.

Result

The completed assembly was installed on the UAV and taken through workshop integration and outdoor testing, demonstrating a complete drone-mounted communication platform for crowd-management scenarios.

A camera car runs a payload along a suspended cable — smooth motion, no vibration reaching the lens, and nothing that can drop.

Build

Designed, manufactured and assembled end to end, leaning on rapid manufacturing so the design could iterate at the speed of testing:

• 3D printing for brackets, housings and drive components
• CNC routing for flat structural parts
• CNC laser cutting for sheet elements

Building this way meant a change to the drive geometry could be tested within a day rather than a fortnight, which is the entire argument for rapid manufacturing on a one-off.

The premise: how much robotic arm can you actually get for very little money, and — more importantly — can you prove it?

Design

A six degrees-of-freedom arm built almost entirely from 3D-printed structural components. Designing for FDM meant working around the process rather than against it: load paths aligned to layer orientation, joints designed for printed tolerances, and part splits chosen so nothing critical relied on a weak inter-layer bond.

Characterisation

The interesting half of the thesis was measurement, not construction. Using MATLAB for data acquisition, I benchmarked the arm to determine its actual performance envelope — where the printed structure compliance showed up, and where the low-cost actuation became the limiting factor rather than the frame.

Outcome

A working arm plus a quantified account of what a low-cost printed design does and does not deliver — which is the part that makes it useful to anyone else considering the same approach.

Client requirements for heavy transport arrive as a description of a job, not a specification. Turning that into something buildable — and legal — was most of the work.

Design and compliance

Complex assemblies designed in SolidWorks, individually and as part of a team. Every design had to satisfy the Road Vehicle Standards Act 2018 (RVSA), with engineering drawings drafted to AS1100. Compliance isn't a step at the end here; it constrains geometry from the first sketch.

Manufacturing

I managed manufacturing on the projects and trained staff across the workshop equipment — CNC machines, brake press and cranes. I ran a high-powered 4-axis fibre laser for sheet and tube components, plus TIG welding and brake press work.

Process improvement

I commissioned the fibre laser cutter and developed new cutting, joinery and engraving techniques around it, which lifted manufacturing efficiency meaningfully. Alongside that I implemented custom scripts to smooth out the software workflows the team relied on daily.

Fila-Scales was designed to answer a practical 3D-printing question: is there enough filament left on the spool to finish the next job? The device measures the spool's weight and uses that reading to estimate the remaining material before a print begins.

Electronics

The custom all-in-one PCB is built around an ESP32 and HX711 load-cell converter. Combining the controller and precision weight-measurement interface on one board avoided a collection of separate development modules and produced a compact system that could be installed as a finished device.

The board also integrates its local display and rotary input hardware, power and communications connections, and the supporting USB-C/UART circuitry needed for programming and development.

Development

The work covered schematic capture, PCB layout, three-dimensional design review, board assembly and microscope inspection. Designing the electronics as one purpose-built board kept the measurement signal path and physical packaging under control.

Result

A compact filament-monitoring controller capable of reading the spool load cell and presenting an estimate of the filament remaining, helping avoid prints being started with insufficient material.

Reliable workshop printing takes more than assembling a stock machine. These systems were built, constructed and maintained as practical production tools, including a custom enclosed printer and a Voron 2.4.

Build and maintenance

The work covered mechanical assembly, electronics integration, enclosure construction and the ongoing calibration and maintenance needed to keep multiple printers producing consistent parts. The enclosed systems provided a controlled build environment while packaging the controller, power supplies and supporting computer into a serviceable machine.

Result

A maintained set of workshop printers capable of repeatable production runs as well as rapid one-off parts, fixtures and design iterations.

The school cleaned roughly 40–50 wheelie bins every week. Each bin was hosed out manually, stuck rubbish washed onto the ground, and the remaining water then had to be tipped out by hand. Workers repeatedly rotated heavy, wet bins while also cleaning the contaminated debris and runoff left around the wash area.

This was slow, physically demanding and created avoidable manual-handling and slip hazards.

Design response

T-Bin was my Year 12 Design and Technology response to that workflow. The device supported and rotated a wheelie bin into a controlled washing and draining position, reducing the need for workers to wrestle the bin onto its side and tip dirty water out manually.

The portable station brought the bin restraint, rotation and wash area into one system so debris and runoff could be managed at the equipment rather than being spread across the surrounding ground.

Result

The finished functional prototype demonstrated a safer and more repeatable way to process the school's weekly bin-cleaning workload. The project was subsequently selected for display at SHAPE 2016, where the prototype and its design-development documentation were exhibited.