Beaver Works Avionics

As a member of the avionics team for the inaugural capstone project of MIT–Lincoln Labs Beaver Works, I integrated the autopilot system with the airframe of a new large-scale radar-sensing remote-piloted aircraft. One of the last things I did before I graduated from MIT was wire this flight harness and perform the hardware-in-the-loop test. I can still feel the intense sleep deprivation…and the thrill of victory when we verified transmission of all autopilot signals.

MIT Beaver Works inaugural class

Edgerton Lab Synthetic Schlieren

I loved learning strobe photography techniques in the MIT Edgerton Center, reproducing many of Doc Edgerton’s original experiments under the guidance of Professor Jim Bales. For my final project, I designed several experiments to prove the feasibility of a portable setup using synthetic schlieren techniques to image fluid flows with varying refractive indices. Our first try—visualizing pressure differentials from a champagne cork popping—didn’t quite work, but when we tried our techniques with a candle flame, we nailed it. Definitely worth using the fancy high-speed video camera!

Still of high-speed video showing heat waves emanating from a candle flame, from Nivair’s synthetic schlieren project