Project Portfolio

I am a second-year mechanical engineering student at Cal Poly SLO and I love to Make. I first joined the maker movement in 2016 when I attended the Bay Area Maker Faire, and I was so inspired by all the amazing exhibits that I decided that I wanted to exhibit one day, and I’ve never looked back. I love designing and fabricating cool and unique projects to challenge how we perceive the world. My first large project, a domino clock, let me flex my creative wings to create a distinctive product. I continued my personal project journey with an E-Ink calendar and a pair of Animatronic Eyes. I enjoy sharing knowledge I’ve gained from my experiences and inspiring others.

I have hands-on experience in CAD, prototyping, and team-based engineering competitions through these projects, especially with Baja SAE & Hydrogen Grand Prix. I am seeking internship opportunities in design, manufacturing, product development, or R&D.

You can follow my projects through this website or through my Instagram @skylar.makes.

Cal Poly Racing Baja SAE

Steering Wheel Dashboard

As the Electromechanical Integration Lead, I worked with the Ergo Lead and an Electronics Lead to design this 13-component dashboard assembly. It gives drivers controls to better operate the electronic continuously variable transmission (eCVT) and informs drivers about the car's current state.

It contains 11 rivnuts, 7 custom-machined potted inserts, 4 buttons, 2 enclosures, 1 display, 1 custom electronic board, and the composite steering wheel.

Shaker Table Testing

As the EMI Lead, I ran vibration tests on our motherboard to verify it can survive the vibrational lifetime of the car.

I made a custom accelerometer DAQ that recorded acceleration data from on-car driving.

Then, I analyzed that data with a MATLAB script to create multiple vibration lifetime Power Spectral Density (PSD) charts for each axis.

Finally, I programmed industrial shaker tables with those PSDs using time compression to simulate the entire vibration lifetime on the spare motherboard to validate the board against vibration.

Battery Enclosure

As a new member, I designed the battery enclosure and chassis mounting tabs for the CPX25 Baja car. The battery enclosure mounts onto a custom-machined pin. It was designed for a fast removal and replacement for the Baja competition.

Horizon Hydrogen Grand Prix

I led a hydrogen-powered RC car team to a #8 overall world ranking.

I vacuum-formed a custom-designed shell for the car. I created a 3D-printed internal mold and strengthened it by filling it with foam.

I custom-designed and coded the telemetry system for the car. It collects data from many current, temperature, and hall effect sensors to wirelessly transmit and then display a summary on a custom-coded GUI.

I designed and manufactured a pit stop system that used a quick-release pneumatic connector and an elastic paracord to achieve a #1 ranked 4.32 sec time.

Maker Faire Involvement

Over the years, I have exhibited several times at the OC Maker Faire and the City of STEM LA Maker Faire.

My basics of circuitry exhibit challenges kids to figure out how to make a light-up hairclip / toggleable LED using an LED, a coin-cell battery, a hairclip, and some tape. I teach them about batteries and how they have positive and negative sides. I also teach them about diodes and how they let electricity flow through them only one way. The light-up hairclips are made with a battery between the two LED legs. In addition to this exhibit, I showcase some of my projects, including people-tracking animatronic eyes, a domino clock, and an E-Ink calendar.

Domino Clock

I designed and manufactured this domino clock. Each domino represents a digit of the current time that is lit up by an ESP32 controlling an LED strip. I wrote an Instructables article to teach others how to make it, and it won a prize from Autodesk.

Face Tracking Animatronic Eyes

I built this face by modifying Will Cogley’s animatronic eye mechanism to fit inside a custom-designed face & enclosure. I coded it to track your face around the room using a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ running a frontal face haar cascade from the OpenCV library.

Videos of it working can be found on my Instagram.

E-Ink Calendar

I designed, coded, and manufactured this calendar. It features a compact 3-color layout, integrated Google Calendar & weather, and progress bar. The frame is made out of a modified picture frame and the back panel is 3D printed.

Knee Scooter

In my ME 328 Design for Strength and Stiffness class, I worked with my group to design and manufacture a functional prototype knee scooter out of PVC pipes. We ran bending stress, max deflection, and buckling hand calculations alongside FEA simulations to inform and validate our design. It was an iterative process that involved running the hand calculations to determine if the beams deflect under the deflection requirement and if the beams yield with a FOS within our FOS range. This led us to select schedule 40 pvc pipe as it was the smallest pipe that fit all of our requirements. In the end, our team won the Best Project Award for our lab section.

Bike Lane Barrier Prototype

In my ME 234 Philosophy of Design class, I worked on a project with my group to design a solution to biking accidents that protects bikers from cars, while prioritizing factors such as street space, cost, and accident risks. We wanted to make a final prototype of a rounded bike lane barrier solution that addressed all of these issues. I designed and 3D-printed a mold and then used it to cast concrete into a functional prototype.

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