One Day(ish) Builds

For the annual Cal Poly Machine Shop open house, we do a bottle opener keychain design. This year I designed the bottle opener to include a topographic map of local Poly Canyon, and variable chamfers along the outside edge. My friend Bradley did the machining this time using a 5 axis tombstone.

Lasercut Cow Glasses Stand - January 2024

Aluminum Truck Keychain Tag - December 2023

A little aluminum keychain tag machined on a CNC router as a christmas gift for my brother

Lopez Island Wooden Topographic Map - December 2023

A topographic map of Lopez Island using a cnc router and stain to create water/land contrast

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Water Vortex Senior Project Repair - December 2023

A friend of mine had a senior project with some serious electromechanical issues and a tight deadline. Adam and I stepped in and after one late night we had redone the wiring to use an arduino and mosfet circuit, along with a new encoder and encoder mount. The senior project was sent to a children's museum the next day!

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Metal Lego Studs - October 2023

My friend Cole and I machined large scale lego studs from various metals on a Haas VF4 mill. Each stud has a magnet embedded inside to allow them to "click" together

Engraved Bike Tube Plug - September 2023

My bike desperately needed a plug for the open front rack tube. Luckily I had planned ahead and put a BSA threaded bottom bracket on the front. I single point threaded a plug to match and added knurling on the manual lathe, then engraved the top on the CNC mill. I then filled the engravings with black spray paint, scotchbriting off the front face afterwards.

Aluminum Rose - May 2023

After seeing a friend of mine make a copper rose, I decided to make an aluminum counterpart as a mothers day gift. Thin aluminum sheet was cut using tin snips, and the layers were spot welded together in the center. After bending the petals, I hot-glued the stem (aluminum filler rod) onto the back.

CNC Aluminum Sprocket - Dec 2022

Over winter break I took the chance to test my old highschool's new Haas Minimill by making a sprocket with pressed in bearings. It now serves as my go-to fidget toy.

Titanium Stem Caps - Nov 2022

Happened to have some titanium lying around, so I made a couple of bicycle headset caps. The caps were first turned and counterbored on the lathe. I then engraved the first with a fly cutter and the rotary vise on the mill. The second I engraved on a cnc mill with a 1/6th endmill. I torched both caps to get some cool burnt titanium colors,

First fly cutter engraving. There were some issues with this one, so I ended up facing it off and doing a different pattern

Second Cap:

CNC engraved version made as a gift for my brother

10x Scale Fidget Switch - Nov 2022

For shop tech secret santa this year I got my friend Andrew, who recently had an obsession with spring switch fidgit toys. Naturally, I created a 10x scale model using laser cutting and 3D printing.

Original 3D printed fidget switch visible in the bottom left

The rack is center sprung with a hair ties

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Turning Rings - July 2022

I turned a stepped mandrel and used a slitting saw to make it expand when engaged with the tailstock on the lathe. I used this mandrel to turn some different sized brass and aluminum rings.

Carbon Fiber Clipboard - Nov 2021

Carbon fiber clipboard made in my composites class. Wet layup with 2 layers of fiber and cured under vacuum.

Laser Cut Laptop Stand - Sep 2021

The goal of this design was to organize and elevate my laptop and the surrounding wires. Additionally, the entire stand is self locking, so no hardware or glue is required to hold it together.

Whipper Trebuchet - July 2021

This project was a spur of the moment idea that some friends and I had after watching Tom Stanton's video on whipper trebuchets. We decided to make an infinitely worse version out of whatever scrap wood and hardware we could find. The result was surprisingly successful (After we tuned the release mechanism).

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Bath House Art Piece - Dec 2020

I really enjoy Martin Tomsky's intricate laser cut art pieces, which feature multiple layers of laser cut wood to create a beautiful 3D image. I decided to make my own 3D art piece of the Bath House from one of my favorite movies, Spirited Away.

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After stain and gluing

The High Five Machine - Dec 2020

A truly ingenious contraption...

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The Rotary Fed Rival Launcher - August 2020

An overly complicated way to launch Nerf Rival balls by pulling balls from 4 different magazines using a rotary feeder and cam system

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I hoped to ultimately have this thing controlled by vision processing and track targets using a 2 axis turret system. However this sadly never happened due to something about a worldwide plague

The Magazine Fed Rival Launcher - August 2019

My first attempt at a Nerf Rival ball launcher. It ended up ripping itself apart...