I love building systems that create value. I seek to be on the cutting edge of the integration of emerging technology and automation.
Please see my CV here, and scroll down for a selection of my work
Karakuri built /FRYR210 to automate deep-fry lines in quick-service restaurants. I worked in the platform team doing Golang backend and React TS frontend work. We built a great product from nothing in very limited time, a significant technical achievement.
Unfortunately Karakuri couldn't secure funding to continue operating, and began wind-down in June 2023.
This was an excellent role with lots of hands-on testing and development. Me in the lab:
Solo art / robotics project using milk, food dye and detergent. Working to automate all processes. Built a fluid handling robot and supporting infrastructure.
I am solely responsible for the full scope of this project, including:Also see: Halloween Special
Lake Parime built modular data centres that operated under a passive cooling model, until their insolvency in January 2023. I took ownership for the software design and implementation of the environmental control system on the Powerbox product. This was a full stack project (Svelte and Golang) with several components:
This diagram outlines the physical design principle of the environmental control system:
I engaged in many other projects, including control of the smart power distribution units, and building out monitoring frontend interfaces. I also gained experience in cross-team communication, interviewing candidate hires, conducting user interviews, and writing requirements.
I took initiative in building a bespoke documentation system for our code-base. The system is based on README.md markdown files and drawio hybrid svg files stored in each repo. The markdown files support diagram insertion through go-template, and each readme can be viewed on the internal website.
My last few months were spent improving system efficiency and scalability. I built comprehensive simulations of Powerbox and rolled out dozens of these to highlight and fix scaling bottlenecks.
During university, a friend and I founded Sensorum together to gain experience in product and business building. We sought to develop sensory augmentation devices in a cost-effective manner for multiple consumer groups. The initial product was a device enabling magnetoreception (a sense of north) in humans. This works through a wearable device that vibrates when it faces north.
As co-founder, I formulated and presented the initial concepts that would become Sensorum's domain. I led product and technical development for the business, involving significant hardware and software engineering. We chose to discontinue the project to focus on full-time work, but the experience was excellent overall. I learnt a lot about technology development and we won a cash prize in a Durham university enterprise competition.
There was much physical work to be done, initially prototyping on bread- and perf-board. The first boards used an ATtiny controller but I decided to change to STM32 for improved performance. I designed this circuit board which has the following all on a single board: a magnetometer; a gyroscope and accelerometer; an STM32 microprocessor; 3.3v LIPO charging circuitry over USB-C; vibration motor driver; and a debugging/programming interface. I am self-taught in electronics and I was very pleased with my learning rate in this domain.
I have written firmware for the product, including custom drivers for the MPU-9250 and QMC-5883L sensors to simplify code and reduce flash requirements. The bulk of the software challenge was in the implementation of the inertial measurement unit (IMU). The main challenge being interference from the on-board vibration motor, which affects accelerometer and gyroscope data. Also the design and implementation of user-friendly calibration and operation functionality was challenging. For the brain to take the outputted data on as sensory input, it must be highly responsive with low latency, demanding efficient real-time algorithms.
I self-proposed my final 4th Year project in the area of IMU body tracking. I went with this because I saw an opportunity to combine multiple domains I had some experience in and produce novel research. This project exposed me to more in the following areas:
I came up with a novel algorithm for inertial-measurement-unit body tracking that works in the absence of magnetic and gravitational fields. I designed, implemented, and tested hardware and software to demonstrate the viability of this algorithm. Excerpt from poster:
I enjoy sharing ideas with others and have given talks in the past on various topics. My most recent talk "The Octopus, Neuroplasticity, and the Future of the Mind" was given at my university college.
I was Chair for the Durham University Meditation Society 2020-2021, and took initiative in updating and moving to expand the society's operations. Including updating the website, and facilitating the transition to online sessions.
I have many interests within and outside of the technical fields including space industrialisation, decentralisation, and personal development. Here are some highlights:
I look forward to the day I can get a high-bandwidth brain-computer interface and no longer have to use my body to interact with computers. To satisfy the itch in the meantime I often spend time customising how I interact with my computer. This often involves writing scripts, macros, and code snippets to automate workflows, and then increasing the accessbility of these through custom shortcuts and bindings.
And here's when I had more screens than sense:
I have recently invested in a home gym in an effort to improve the consistency of my lifting. My main focus is compound movements: squats, deadlifts, press, and bench.
For the first half of 2023 I was training for the Walden Tri sprint distance with my Mum on 14th May. I love the variety that comes with multi-sport training like this, it's so much more engaging than just doing one thing. Here is my time sheet for the 400m swim + 23km bike ride + 5km run:
I was aiming for 1:45:00 so was happy with the result, but my cycling was clearly the main weakness. I'm now focusing on training for a standard distance triathlon (1.5km swim + 40km bike + 10km run). I plan to do a few this year in 2024.