Aerospace Engineering · Arizona State University
I design and analyze airplanes and rockets, then build and fly them. Composites, variable-pitch propellers, clustered motors, long-range drones. The analysis is where the engineering happens. The flight is the proof.
I have been chasing airplanes and rockets since I was a kid in Seattle. It started with model rockets, which turned into a running project of pushing for new altitudes and figuring out recovery systems that actually survived the landing. In high school I started flight training toward my private pilot license, and in the meantime I was always building something, from RC planes and guitars to 3D printers and Arduino projects, while driving and captaining FIRST Robotics team 4682.
Most of the work on any of these projects happens before anything gets cut. Laying out geometry, sizing the wing, running the numbers, and working out why a configuration will or will not hold up. By the time I start building, the engineering decisions are already committed, and the build is mostly execution of choices I made on paper.
What flying what I design adds is accountability. An aircraft that handles badly is telling me something about my analysis that I could not have argued past in CAD. The aft-CG problem on my STOL airplane was a weight-and-balance error I made weeks before I made it in the air, because I flipped the motor and did not re-run the numbers. Designing something and then having to fly it is how I find those errors and stop repeating them.
Alongside school I run a 3D design and printing business that cleared over $10,000 in profit in its first year, and I fly and repair FPV drones both for the ASU club and commercially under a Part 107 license.
A few things I have designed, built, and flown. Each one started as a design problem on paper and ended with a result that either confirmed the analysis or corrected it.
A composite short-takeoff-and-landing RC aircraft with a working variable-pitch propeller
Three airframes over six years, chasing altitude on motors that cost a fraction of composite
A 1960s balsa aerobat, a modular cargo airframe, a weather-balloon glider, and a slatted STOL scale model
A GPS-equipped long-range airframe for mountain surfing and search-and-rescue, plus flight instruction at the ASU Drone Club
A four-person build turning an abandoned shopping cart into a 35 mph go-kart for under $600
A custom design and manufacturing operation — 100+ customers, 1,400+ print hours, over $10,000 profit in year one
CAD & Design
Programming
Fabrication
Coursework
Work
The Home Depot
3D Design & Printing Services · Self-employed
Custom Model Aircraft Design · Self-employed
Upward Creative Media · Self-employed
SMS Intl Shore Operations Inc · Seattle, WA
Bishop Blanchet High School · Seattle, WA
Teams & Clubs
ASU Drone Club · Arizona State University
ASU Sun Devils RC Airplane Club · Arizona State University
FIRST Robotics Team 4682 · Seattle, WA
STEM Education Outreach