Projects Archives | Paul Bupe, Jr

R&D Case Study: Developing the OptiGap Sensor System

Reading Time: 9 minutes

Update: You can follow the discussion of this article around the web on HN, Adafruit, Hackaday, and Hackster.io!

This article explores the research and development journey behind my new sensor system, OptiGap, a key component of my PhD research. I’m writing this in a storytelling format to offer insights into my decision-making process and the evolution leading to the final implementation. It should hopefully provide a glimpse into the sometimes-shrouded world of PhD research and may appeal to those curious about the process. For a deeper dive into technical specifics, simulations, and existing research on this subject, my dissertation is available online here.

Reflow Soldering in Unmodified Toaster Oven?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I’ve been designing a 4-layer PCB for a product for a few months now and I finally got to the stage of assembling the prototype after the PCB and components arrived. Most of the passive components I used were 0603 surface mount parts so reflow soldering was the only viable option (if I wanted to maintain my sanity).

Since I don’t have a proper reflow oven, I decided to use the next best thing I own: No not my hot air rework station, a toaster oven!

Designing an Advanced Autonomous Robot: Goose

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Update: This article was featured on Hackaday.com and on SDP/SI’s “Featured People and Organizations” page.

Goose is a mobile autonomous robot I designed and built over 6 months in my spare time for a robotics competition. This was a fully custom and challenging build that tested my competence in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, control systems, and computer science.

Instead of focusing heavily on the competition, the goal of this article is to briefly go through the system design process. I’ll touch on my various design choices and discuss how I chose to address some of the common issues in designing an autonomous robot. This is not a tutorial (those will be coming later) but more of a case study.

4-Layer PCB Design in KiCad 5: Quick Thoughts

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I recently had to design a 4-layer PCB and I finally decided to give KiCad another try (after hearing great things about version 5). I’ve known about KiCad for years and even tried it once a few years back but it never felt quite “there” yet. After spending a few months designing a 4-layer board I have to say it has certainly won me over.

Wood Clock Gears with Motor Drive – Part 3 of 3

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Picking up from Part 2, the third and final part of the wood click gears with motor drive build covers the stepper motor drive. The gears ended up driving this really beautiful clock. Note that I did not build the clock, just the gears driving the hands.

Wood Clock Gears with Motor Drive – Part 2 of 3

Reading Time: 2 minutesPicking up from Part 1 of the wood clock gears project where I designed the gears, Part 2 will cover the physical assembly of the gear build. This was the simplest part of the build since it only involved cutting the gears using a laser cutter and gluing everything together.

Continue reading Wood Clock Gears with Motor Drive – Part 2 of 3

Wood Clock Gears with Motor Drive – Part 1 of 3

Reading Time: 3 minutes

I was asked to design and build the gear and drive mechanism for a 6 foot clock. The clock had an hour and a minute hand and needed to move in both the clockwise and anti-clockwise direction. This was not a “realtime clock” and needed to move visibly fast.

I decided to use wood clock gears with a motor drive for the sake of simplicity. This build was definitely more out of my comfort zone than usual but proved to be a fun and educational experience. Part 1 goes over the design of the gears. Part 2 will cover the physical build and Part 3 the electrical design and final build.

Continue reading Wood Clock Gears with Motor Drive – Part 1 of 3

ModBot: A Modular Robotics Test Platform

Reading Time: 4 minutes

ModBot is a simple robotics platform created for testing sensors, algorithms, vision systems, and everything else in between. I designed this platform with modularity in mind (thus the name) which requires the compartmentalization of behaviors and functions into discrete and, ideally, interchangeable modules. Since this is an experimental platform I opted not tie it to ROS (even though it still uses a Linux environment so ROS can be used) and created a very simple ASCII protocol for communication between modules. Lastly, I added teleoperation capabilities using a PlayStation DualShock 4 controller.

DIY Housing for 100W Audio Amplifier Module

Reading Time: 3 minutesThis was a fun build around the Sure 2×100 Watt Amplifier Module. I spent most of the time on this project designing the chassis in SolidWorks and chasing around the cause of a fairly high noise floor. The final chassis which was very beautifully built by my friend Rodney.