Finished Projects

Mr. Root Lightbox

This was my first electronic project I had created in the shop. All the sophomores were required to make their own unique lightboxes. We were able to design our lightboxes as we pleased but we had to design and solder our own PCB (printed circuit board) version of microcontroller rather than using an actual one like a Metromini. My lightbox wasn't a very noteworthy design because I opted to max out efficiency making the smallest lightbox by volume out of all the other lightboxes. It featured 3 knobs one on each side controlling the different RGB values of the neopixel strip which was lighting up the acrylic piece on top which features the face of my freshman year math teacher Harlan Root. I gave my lightbox to him as a gift and he has it up on his desk to this day. This project helped teach the skill of using the PCB milling machines, soldering, and the whole process of schematic designing.

Turners Cube

This is technically my very first project I'd created in the shop but I only half consider it a real project. The turners cube is a cube with circles going into the cube on all sides. Everyone in my class was instructed to make this but not everyone did complete theirs. This cube was created using a CNC tormach mill and this project helped teach us the skill of using the CNC mills. 

Sumo Robot

This was the most complex project of my sophomore year the Sumo Robot competition. In our shop we had a sumo robot contest where all of the sophomores would get in teams of 2 and together design and produce a robot to compete in the competition. The competition was simple, 2 robots would enter the ring and your robots goal was to be the last one standing on the ring. My partner was Aaron BenDaniel and together we formed Team Nestle. He took over all of the 3D modeling and designing of our robot and I handled the electronics and coding side. I designed our bot to go in a straight line and whenever it would reach the border of the ring it'd turn its direction and keep going straight. We had 2 competitions and we won the first and ended up losing in the other one. Many teams competed but this project helped teach us to use motors and different kinds of sensors.

Brass Ring

In the same vein as the Turners Cube I don't consider this a full project more so an on the side little thing I made. I'd wanted a ring for myself for a while and I saw some other classmates attempting to make rings for themselves on the lathe. I decided to try myself and I successfully made a brass ring that I wear consistently, and I learned how to use our lathe.

Ring Holder

A small project I did with the similar purpose of making the turners cube. I made this because over the course of sophomore year and the summer I completely forgot how to use the CNC Tomach machines we have in the machine shop. So I embarked on this project to relearn how to use the mills and to learn how to do camming. The project did not take long only about a few days to complete.

Paper Lantern

I started it at the end of sophomore year and nearly completed it but I had to wait for my own parts to arrive so I could take it home. Because I was using the shops parts like their LED and LED driver I couldn't take it home and had to complete it at the start of this school year (2023-2024). There is a large cloche dome over the top to protect the paper parts of the inside. The project is fairly simple it's essentially just a light in a box with a switch to turn it on and off. On top however is a paper cut out of the popular show Gravity Falls that I cut out using our laser cutter. This lantern was designed as a gift so I will no longer in possession of it.