Sunday, February 24, 2013

Mechatronics Competition (Mechanical Engineering Junior Year 2010)

The King Kong Mechatronics Competition was a year long project for all juniors in mechanical engineering at the U of U. The goal of the competition was to build an autonomous robot that could follow a line, read sensors, pick up a doll, avoid the other robots and climb 3 feet up a building. It was a ton of fun and I had some of the greatest people on my team. We were the first team to have a working prototype that could complete the course. This was the class that really taught me the art (or science) of problem solving and troubleshooting.



We adapted a poster from the recent King Kong movie with our robot in it.




This is a clip or our robot in action.


Wednesday, February 20, 2013

10 Year Anniversary Wedding Rings

It was my 10 year wedding anniversary and I wanted to get something special for my wife, but for some reason, I was still in school at the time and had absolutely no money. I got a little ambitious and decided to make a pair of titanium wedding bands. They started out as a solid rod about a foot long and I machined them down on a manual lathe and mill. At first I was going to surprise my wife with the ring, but I realized it would be way more helpful to have her input along the way, so we designed them together.




The rings started from a solid rod similar to one of these.


 I first roughed out a thick ring on a lathe and then milled a 45 degree angle out of the center. I also used a tiny spur bit to cut a groove the length of the diamond on each side.


I roughed out a bit more of the shape using a large sander with course sand paper.


 Continuing to sand, but also file a lot by hand with a small file set.


 The rest of the work was done with sandpaper and a lot of elbow grease.


 To finish it off, I used really fine sand paper and then polished it on a buffer.


 The last step was setting the stone. I had practiced this on several prototype rings and chipped several CZs, but this ring was aligned well and after clamping the base of the ring in a vice with plastic jaws, I carefully torqued open the ring with a wooden dowel and inserted the stone. Lucky for me, it didn't crack.


This is my band that I turned on a lathe. I engraved 10 tally marks on the inside of each of the rings to mark our tenth anniversary.


As a finishing touch, I anodized the inside of mine a deep blue.



Monday, February 18, 2013

Ultrasound Exam Tables

I started Leymin Corp, designing, manufacturing and selling ergonomic ultrasound exam tables and accessories.  After some time, I came to a crossroads in my life and I realized I could either commit myself wholeheartedly to making hospital beds, or I could go back to school and become an engineer.  I went with engineering.  It was one of the best choices of my life. 



These exam tables could get higher than any other on the market at the time.


It could also get lower than any other table. They were as low as a standard wheelchair.


Every feature on the exam tables was better and could extend further than any other tables at the time.