I'm Zach.
Mechanical engineer
who builds hardware.

Modeling and fabricating the rear diffuser for Tufts Electric Racing's formula-style student-built competition car.

Three interconnected systems for the Frontier Tower print farm — a slicing pipeline, G-code vault transport, and real-time fleet monitoring across 6+ printers; manual queue management down ~80%.

• Printers 6+ active
• Stack Python + systemd
• Queue load −80%

Dual-sensor (visual + 640×512 thermal) fixed-wing UAV for wildfire monitoring, with 60+ CAD revisions in Fusion 360.

Diagnosed a rear-push propulsion failure before it reached flight test: the motor's rotation direction was mismatched to the propeller thread, so centrifugal load under power would back it off its own shaft.

• Wingspan 0.827 m
• Airframe LW-PLA, 8mm carbon spars
• Avionics Pixhawk 4 / 30km LoRa / ELRS
• Iterations 60+ CAD revisions
• Budget ~$900 total

View process photos (10)

Mapped 50+ AI/robotics frameworks across vision, SLAM, planning, and control; built a ROCm compatibility matrix (PyTorch, ROS2, YOLOv7, ORB-SLAM3) surfacing critical driver and build gaps.

Open-source, self-hostable PrusaLink client and print-queue system, generalized out of the Frontier Tower deployment so any makerspace can run it against its own printer fleet. Three independently-installable Python packages: a core client/queue library, a FastAPI reference service, and an optional MCP adapter for agent access.

• Packages core (client + queue) / service (FastAPI) / mcp (MCP adapter)
• Language Python
• Safety Upload-only by default, per-printer auto_print off by default

Serverless rebuild of my home energy dashboard around amps instead of watts — the number that actually determines how close a circuit is to tripping its breaker. Real per-circuit current pulled straight from Emporia's own API, true hourly peaks instead of averages, and an all-time peak per circuit that survives past Emporia's own retention window.

• Stack Python, AWS Lambda (SAM), DynamoDB
• Unit Amps, pulled directly from Emporia's own API
• Peaks True hourly max + all-time max per circuit
• Infra Serverless — no EC2/ALB/NAT/API Gateway

Cost-first lead detector built around a biomechanical riboswitch, with a bio-safe enclosure and a self-managed supply chain under contest time pressure. Took first prize.

• Result 1st place, $1,250
• Sponsor Pilgrim Labs
• Focus Cost + accessibility

View process photos (1)

Cast-concrete base and laser-cut wood arm; twisting the housing drives a spur-gear linkage that converts that rotation into linear motion to mechanically actuate the LED's switch. Structural plastic components were 3D-printed.

• Base Cast concrete
• Arm Laser-cut wood
• Switch mechanism Rotary-to-linear spur gear
• Smaller components 3D-printed plastic

View process photos (1)