Roger's Design Portfolio
A. Underwater Vehicles and Instrumenation
- Calculations for the Crush Depth of Simple Cylinders and Plates
- These are a set of calculations and tools for estimating the crush depth of simple cylinders and plates based on their size and material. I developed these as part of the UEC project. I get enough questions about these tool, that I moved them to their own section.
- Faculty Rep. for the US Naval Academy's AUV Club
- As the faculty rep for the AUV club I supervised the students design and build an AUV. I also did a lot of the harder programming for them.
- Pressure Compensating Alkaline Batteries for Deep Sea Use
- During the UEC project I developed a technique for allowing Duracell alkaline batteries to operate at ambient pressures in excess of 10,000 psi. This is useful because alkaline batteries have a very high energy density, particularly at cold temperatures, compared to other battery types. Their downside is that they are not rechargable.
- Project ORCA, the MIT Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Team
- I did machining and fabrication for MIT's AUV team. I also learned a lot about designing AUVs.
- Underwater Experiment Canister (UEC)
- The Underwater Experiment Canister (UEC) is a project that I conceived, designed, and lead as a junior in college to take better advantage of the free flood space aboard Submarine NR-1. We were able to send two sets of experiments to sea.
B. Manufacturing and Test Equipment
- Ceramic Samurai
- This traces the design evolution of a small high precision ceramic grinding lathe from initial concepts, through a detailed analysis, to a more detailed design.
- MesoMill
- A design for a small desktop milling machine. This design tries to minimize the number of custom parts.
- MiniMill
- The MiniMill is a desktop milling machine to demonstrate the use of the Axtrusion linear motion device. I designed the Axtrusion linear motion device for my Master's thesis. There are MiniMills designed that use the Axtrustion and others that use more traditional liner motion components.
- Spindle Concepts for Small Machining Centers
- This is a custom design for small high power high accuracy spindles. This spindle was designed for the mini-mill.
- The Axtrustion Non-Contact Linear Motion System (Master's Thesis)
- I designed and built this non-contact linear motion system for my master's thesis. It is easy to manufacture. There is no contact between the moving carriage and its way, so it is ideal for cleanroom/semiconductor applications or machining ceramics. My initial prototype had micron level accuracy and repeatability.
- The Flextester
- The Flextester is a device for performing stress and strain measurements on MEMS structures. We designed and built it as part of our graduate level precision design course.
- The Modular Kinematic Coupling
- This is a kinematic coupling which repeatably and precisely aligns componts on Star Linear's structural beams. This is one of the custom parts required for the Meso-Mill.
- The Overbeck L/T Super Precision Grinder
- This machine is an offshoot of my master's thesis. It is currently being developed in a partnership between MIT and Overbeck of Hauppauge, NY. There is a four page article on it in the December 2002 issue of American Machinist. We have also had journal articles in Precision Engineering and ASPE.
C. MIT Undergraduate Work
- 2.007 Machine
- This machine was build for my sophomore introduction to design course. Each student is given an identical box of parts at the start of the semester. They must build a machine to compete in massive single elimination tournament. My machine placed 8th of approximately 100.
- 2.670 Sterling Engine
- This engine was built as part of my introdution to the machine shop. The parts were provided in rough form and we had to finish them in the shop.
- A 'Mass Produced' Plastic Yo-Yo
- For my introduction to manufacturing class I had to make 50 plastic yo-yos. Each yo-yo had to have at least 3 individual parts which snap fitted together. We had to make the dies for the injection molding machines ourselves. Making little plastic parts which snap together is actually a lot hard than it looks...
- Electric Gocart
- I designed an electric gocart and supervised a team of freshmen building it as part of their freshmen seminar. The gocart was later used as a template to build a fleet of them to serve as a lab platform for the Electrical Engineering Department's power electronics course. The best part of this project was LEARNING TO WELD!!!
- MIT Solar Vehicle Team
- I did machining and fabrication for the team. Additionally I built a parametric model of the vehicle's suspension in Design View... Who remembers DEC work stations?
- Power Mini-Van Rear Gate Opener
- This was my design project for my senior design and manufacturing course. It was a replacement for a gas strut on the rear hatch of a mini-van with a powered unit that could be remotely operated from one's key chain. It would detect objects in the way and not crush them (like babies). Our team came in first that year. Alas all the files were lost in the great Hard Drive Crash of 2000 (not Y2K related)
- Teaching Mechanical Engineering Design
- I taught mechanical engineering design for 3 of my 5 years at MIT. I wrote numerous tutorials on various design topics. I designed two of the contests for MIT's Mechanical Engineering Introduction to Design Course (2.007). Here are examples of my tutorials, descriptions of the contests, and COOL videos of the final rounds.
D. Other
- ES360 Introduction to Controls Engineering (for non-engineers)
- These are the course materials I developed as an introductory course in controls engineering at the United States Naval Academy. This course is taken by 600 to 700 students per year (60% of the student body).
- Finite Element Analysis w/ Ansys
- I spent the summer of 1998 doing finite element analysis at the Electric Boat Corporation. Using Ansys, I modeled the electrical, mechanical, and magnetic intractions for a proposed motor housing. This model was used to accurately specify the manufactuing tolerance for the motor. When the motor was build my model agreed with the actual performance.
- Gas Spring Modeling and Analysis
- This is a short analysis modeling the force to displacement function for a gas spring. Originally it was done as an aid for MIT's Mechanical Engineering's Introduction to Design (2.007) students.
- Yakima Bike Rack Cozy
- Ok, so this one is not exactly rocket science or nuclear engineering... but I was tired of my roof rack scratching the paint on my bikes. Here is my solution...
E. Software
- Baltimore Area Aviation Wx Summary
- This was a quick project because I was tired of clicking all over the NOAA web site for weather information and the banner add on popular weather websites are annoying. This page displays a number of weather products on a single page with no adds.
- Digital Notebook
- I created an online digital notebook to write down and develop all of my ideas without keeping tons of different notebooks. The notebook also allows me to collaborate on my ideas with my friends across the country. The link above is to the hastily writen help file. Some of my notes in my notebook I have exported to be publicly viewable here... http://rogercortesi.com/ideas/public/index.php
- LaTeX Packages and Classes
- Here are come packages and document classes I have written for LaTeX. There are pdf files explaining their usage.
- NanoMail Email Client
- This is a bare bones web based email client written in less than 150 lines of code.
- Online Equation Editor
- Online Equation Editor is a web application for generating high quality images of equations from LaTeX strings. The images can be used for Power Point presentations and web publications. This application has averaged over a 1000 uses per month for 2006.
- Online General Aviation Pilot Log
- This is an online pilot log for general aviation pilots. In addition to tracking one's flight hours, it tracks the medical and proficiency requirements to be allowed to fly.
- The Digital Athletic Log
- This is an online athletic training log for tracking and analyzing multiple endurance sports. It currently has over 200 users and a version is also in use at http://trifuel.com/
- Vehicle Maintenance Log
- This is an online maintenance log for tracking the maintenance on vehicles. It calculates when periodic maintence items are coming due and sends monthly email reminders. See the online help for all the features.
F. High School Projects
- Compost Bin Eagle Scout Project
- I built this huge compost bin at my high school for my Eagle Scout Project.
- Fire Extinguisher Practical Joke
- This was a silly but fun project to hide a remote control fire extinguisher in the ceiling of the fire station to squirt the unsuspecting victim.
- The Shop'N Cart
- This was a project built with my high school engineering team for the National Engineering Design Contest. It had to unload 120 lbs of groceries from a trunk of a car and carry them up a set of stairs.
- The TorqueMaster
- The TorqueMaster is a device that I helped design and build for my high school engineering team. It is designed to allow a person with severly injured hands to open a wide variety of household items.
- Transparency Mover
- This was yet another projected designed and built with my high school engineering team for the National Engineering Design Contest. It was designed to allow a quadriplegic to put on a presentation with transparencies... This was 1994... What's Power-Point?
Ph.D.
- Dissertation Defense Slides
- Here are the slides from my dissertation defense as a pdf.
- Dissertation Full Text
- This is the full text of my dissertation as a pdf.
The USNA's AUV taking shape in the tow tank.
The Axtrusion, a precise linear motion system built for my Master's thesis.
A spindle concept for a small milling machine
The modal analysis for a compact ceramic grinding lathe... The Ceramic Samurai.
UEC-2B receives last minute instructions before being loaded aboard submarine NR-1
The prototype flextester.
The Overbeck L/T Super Precision Ginder on the cover of the December 2002 issue of American Machinist. Read the article in American Machinist
The Overbeck L/T Grinder World Debut at IMTS 2002