Ryan Draper Email & Phone Number

New York City Metropolitan Area

New York, New York, United States

Philadelphia, Pa

Conducted research under the mentorship of Dr. Kevin Turner in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. My research focused on designing and manufacturing a soft robotic gripping mechanism that is driven by changes in air pressure that induce local material’s deformation. The goal of this project was to fabricate and test a soft robotic gripper capable of picking up a diverse range of objects – such as a potato chip bag, empty tennis ball canister, padlock, and cotton ball. Conducted Finite Element Analysis on SolidWorks and ABAQUS to predict deformation of the soft robotic grippers as internal and external dimensions changed. Prototyped soft robotic grippers made from PDMS (polyethyleneterephthalate) and PET (polydimethylsiloxane) to test variables in order to maximize tip deformation. Tested prototypes via pneumatic actuation and measured deformation through Matlab image analysis.

Arlington, Va

Worked with a Product Manager and a team of Software Engineers to develop product features. Designed and manually executed extensive test plans which were devised to assess the readiness of product features for client use. These test plans were designed to examine the product features from a client perspective across different browsers, entities, and languages to insure full functionality. Created unit tests to verify function-level performance and outputs. Tested, deprecated, and deleted toggles for outdated product features. Used Selenium to program automated test plans which check that new code does not negatively impact old product features. Worked on product documentation to increase the clarity and usability of documentation for clients. Used Splunk to collect and analyze user data on product usage, feature bugs, and documentation searches. Used Microsoft SQL server to query databases to check back-end functionality.

Conducted research under the mentorship of Dr. Kevin Turner in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics through the PURM (Penn Undergraduate Research Mentorship) program. The research focused on designing and manufacturing a soft robotic gripping mechanism that is driven by changes in air pressure that induce local material’s deformation. The goal of this project was to fabricate and test a soft robotic gripper capable of picking up a diverse range of objects – such as a potato chip bag, empty tennis ball canister, padlock, and cotton ball.