In this role I worked on 3 projects utilizing value analysis and iterative design. I really enjoyed the design work in Creo and prototyping to achieve the best solution, as well as the data analysis and problem solving to optimize cost savings.

I meet with prospective undergraduate students to give them a tour of Sidney Lu Mechanical Engineering Building, tell them about my experience as a MechSE student at UIUC, and answer any questions they have. Tour group sizes range from 1 to >20 people.

I am developing strain-resilient transistors through nanoscale wrinkling by testing materials to act as the base layer for transistors to be mounted on. I test different thicknesses of hafnium dioxide and parylene-C that could be stretched to the highest percentage with minimal cracking. I have already fabricated and tested several films, noting the point where more cracks form and the period of the wrinkles. I created a uniaxial testing apparatus using 3D printing and spare parts. This semester I am adding a multilayer of graphene in between two layers of hafnium dioxide to test how it affects the wavelength and elastic modulus.

Intern under the application engineering role in the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) department with Cadence. I have benchmarked designs and meshes using Cadence’s CFD software.

I worked with two graduate students to study the biological mechanisms of the click beetle using a mass-spring-latch system. I derived theoretical equations and modeled a simplified version of the system to be altered with more degrees of freedom. To build the testing device, I created engineering drawings for the machined parts, selected springs that fit the criteria and used computer-aided design to design a box to hold a variable mass within the system. I also used 3D printing to produce iterations of the box until the system was finalized.