Clean-in-Place System Prototype
I Designed, built and tested a custom CIP system prototype for the food service industry. The device automatically cleaned a robotic saucing machine. The prototype successfully metered the cleaning and sanitization chemicals while providing strong water-agitation/pulsation forces to break up the most stubborn sauces within internal sauce-machine hose-lines.
Food Automation Sauce Pump
Tested various positive displacement pumps for automating sauce dispensing for the food industry. The goal, I’m looking for a pump style capable of delivering +-2 gram accuracy over life of pump, easy to prime, handle chunky sauces and able to be cleaned with a Clean-In-Place system to NSF and industry standards.
Automated Seasoner System
Redesigned a seasoner subsystem within a burger making robot, containing 12 selected spices with the goal of improving reliability
Induction Coil Size Testing
When designing a food automation robot, you want the fastest cooking time. Thus, one would assume a 9 inch induction coil would heat up faster Vs. a 5inch coil, but lets test to find out.
Automated Meat Grinder, Patty forming and Robot Arm
With the Goal of automating the assembly of a burger, one needs a subsystem which will hold fresh meat, grind it to order, form into a patty, verify the correct mass and deliver to the cooking subsystem. Time to design, build and test.
Custom Shaft Slip Couplings, Design and Testing
For an automated food robot machine, one needed a shaft coupling connecting a motor to a meat hopper/grinder. This coupling will be operated by restaurant personnel and NO tools are allowed per NSF standards. So, a custom made a shaft coupling was designed from Kevlar reinforced nylon. Next, I performed FEA on the contact points and physically tested to see if results match reality.
Pressure and Thermal Test Chambers, Stress Testing
For the Automated burger machine, it was needed to wirelessly monitor the cooking surface temperature. The only issue, the cooking surface is susceptible to high temperature changes and repeated washings daily. Needed a test-rig to check the sealed electronics would hold up.
Mind Controlled wheelchair Headset
Designed a headset support structure for a startup looking to control mechatronics with your MIND!
Custom Automatic Blender
Designed a blender with internal filtration and a custom auto fill-blend-drain cycle for the food industry
Kava Ultrasonic Testing
Testing the performance of a BSP-1200 SonoMechanics Sonicator liquid Processor for batch extraction for the food industry by varying time, temperature and concentration.
Pendulum Worm
Designed and fabricated the world’s first ever Pendulum Worm for the physics department at St Cloud State University in Minnesota. The apparatus displays precisely tuned oscillators displaying a standing wave of changing wavelength over time, similar to the Pendulum Snake.