§ 1 The engineer, in brief
Undergraduate · Mechanical Engineering
I build things that have to survive the real world — rockets, batteries, instruments. Before rockets: a 4WD car and an Arduino trash can that opened itself. The question that keeps me at this desk: how do structures behave at their limits?
- EDU
- B.S. ME · Northeastern ’27
- MINOR
- Mathematics
- GPA
- 3.98 / 4.00
- FOCUS
- Battery mechanics · FEA
- NEXT
- MS applicant · Fall 2027
GitHub ↗ · LinkedIn ↗ · Email ↗
§ 2 Battery Mechanics
Research · Prof. Juner Zhu
Two Abaqus/Explicit studies of spiral-wound cells, built end-to-end. A plane-strain model resolves all eight layers before any buckling — checked against published values to ~0.1% on one case. A plane-stress model heats a single wound strip inside a rigid casing — the monitor shows its real stress field.
- LAYERED
- 8 layers · plane strain
- MATCH
- ~0.1% Δ · Cu hoop-strain
- WINDING
- Turns 9/12/15 · µ 0, 0.3
- REPORTS
- Two technical reports
- TERM
- ME 4991 co-op · Spring 2026
§ 3 The Project Register
Project register · 7 entries
This folio is the index. Ten airframes, 2019–2023 — from a water rocket to the Sorbicore design study — two field devices built and run, robot code, an iOS client, and the capstone. Objects around the workshop open their own cards.
- ENTRIES
- 7 projects
- IN THE WORKSHOP
- 6 objects
- DEEP DIVES
- 3 instruments
§ 4 The Cabinet
Honors & certificates
Two Chinese patents, a software copyright, and certificates from the Mayor of Boston, the Governor of Massachusetts, the MA State Auditor, the Boston City Council, and the Hangzhou Foreign Affairs Office.
- HONOR
- Tau Beta Pi · Dean’s List ×6
- PATENT
- CN ×2 — design + utility model
- CIVIC
- Boston–Hangzhou exchange
Projects — full register
Environmental Box
CAPSTONE · 2026 · Team member
An environment for evaporation experiments, integrating six subsystems. My work: simpler controls and thermal / moisture choices.
Open the capstone →
Sorbicore
Design study · Designer · independent
A 1 m amateur high-power rocket modelled part-by-part as parametric CAD-as-code (ForgeCAD) — 104 runtime checks, conservative predicted apogee 200–250 m. Design-complete, digitally validated — not built or flown.
Multi-Engine Rocketry
2019–2023 · ten airframes · Designer & Builder
Ten airframes, 2019–2023, from a 10 m water rocket to a multi-engine vehicle past 100 m — a program that produced two Chinese patents: the multi-engine rocket design, and a wireless launch device (utility model).
Battery Mechanics FEA
Spring 2026 – · Undergraduate Researcher · Prof. Juner Zhu
Two 2D Abaqus/Explicit studies of spiral-wound lithium-ion cells, built end-to-end: an eight-layer plane-strain model checked against published values to ~0.1% on one case, and a plane-stress winding study of a heated strip in a rigid casing, run as scripted, automated batches.
Agentic Abaqus Workflow
2026 · Independent
Custom skills let a coding agent drive the full Abaqus loop — rebuild, mesh, extract — escalating hard cases to a supervisor model and running 24h+ unattended; built to accelerate the jelly-roll modeling. A public write-up of the workflow (X, Apr 2026) circulated widely (~261K views).
Indoor Air Quality Study
ME 4505 term project · Team lead of 4 · Prof. Smyser
Late-fall field study of five campus spaces with a self-assembled CO₂ / PM2.5 sensor box — twenty 10-minute sessions; location-mean CO₂ and PM2.5 correlate at r ≈ 0.96 (n = 5, p < 0.01).
BLE Dog Health Monitor
GE1501 · Fall 2023 · Team lead of 4
Wearable harness with two Arduino Nano 33 BLE boards monitoring canine heart rate, temperature and activity over Bluetooth — sensors, firmware and 3D-printed enclosure designed from scratch. A first-year design-course prototype, demonstrated on a dog model at the Expo.
FRC Robot Software
2021–2023 · Software team member
Java control code and debugging tools for a competition robot, two FIRST Robotics seasons; sensors and actuators integrated with the mechanical and electrical subteams, debugged under match-time pressure.
GlassGPT
Ongoing · iOS Developer
A native iOS/iPadOS chat client (SwiftUI · SwiftData) with an actor-isolated runtime, structured as 16 SwiftPM modules behind hard CI gates — an LLM client built like an instrument. Built fully on the iOS 26 Liquid Glass design language before it was in wide use, with LaTeX / formula rendering.
Instrument fact sheets
Deep-dive records · figures verified or labeled
Battery Mechanics
Two Abaqus/Explicit studies · spiral-wound cell section
Simulation predictions · one model checked against published values · no physical test
- layered study · distinct continua · collectors · coatings · separators
- 8 layers
- layered study · Cu hoop-strain vs published · on the one checked case
- ~0.1% Δ
- winding study · Archimedean strip · rigid circular casing
- 15 turns
- winding study · friction · two values · turns 9 · 12 · 15
- µ = 0 · 0.3
Verified Abaqus model parameters
- Model
- Winding study · 2D plane stress (CPS4R)
- Turns
- 15
- Pitch
- 1.08 mm
- Inner radius R_in
- 5.0 mm
- Mesh size
- 0.2 mm
- Young's modulus E
- 70 GPa (Al)
- Poisson's ratio ν
- 0.33
- Density ρ
- 2670 kg/m³
- Thermal expansion α
- 1×10⁻⁵ /°C
- Thermal step
- Abaqus/Explicit · ΔT → 50 °C over 1000 s
- Boundary
- rigid circular casing, fixed · friction µ = 0.3
- Material model
- linear-elastic
Scope — two separate simulation studies: an eight-layer plane-strain model and a homogeneous plane-stress winding model (the parameters listed are the winding model’s). Neither simulates buckling.
- Reference values for the validation check come from published jelly-roll literature; full citation available on request.
- Abaqus/Explicit — 2D plane-strain and plane-stress finite-element solver (Dassault Systèmes).
Sorbicore
1 m amateur high-power rocket · ForgeCAD
Design complete · digitally validated · not yet built or flown
- length · Ø67 mm airframe
- 1000 mm
- apogee · conservative predicted
- 200–250 m
- liftoff mass · G80-7T / KNSB
- 883–983 g
- static stability margin · ballast-tuned at the nose
- 1.1–1.4 cal
- Richard Nakka Experimental Rocketry · ThrustCurve.org · RocketMime · Barrowman (Box/Bishop/Hunt) · OpenRocket · NAR / Tripoli / NFPA 1122·1127 / 14 CFR 101.22 · jcrocket.com
Indoor Air Quality
5-location campus field study · Boston, late fall
Measured field data · small n (5 locations / 20 sessions) · correlation, not causation
- locations · sessions · 10 minutes each · two November days
- 5 / 20
- CO₂ ↔ PM2.5 · n = 5 · p < 0.01
- r ≈ 0.96
- Curry PM2.5 µg/m³ · just over WHO 15
- 16.4
- Curry IAQ score · lowest of five (0–100)
- 53.2
- World Health Organization, WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines (2021) — 24-h references PM2.5 15 µg/m³, PM10 45 µg/m³; used here as reference lines only, not compliance thresholds.
- J. Li, Z. Zhong, Q. Liang, J. Liu, “Indoor Air Quality (Boston, Late Fall),” ME 4505 term project, Northeastern University, Dec 2025 (instructor Prof. B. M. Smyser).
- Sensirion AG — SCD4x CO₂ sensor and SEN5x environmental node datasheets (sensor accuracy figures).
Dog Health Monitor
dual Arduino Nano 33 BLE wearable · Fall 2023
Working prototype · Fall-2023 first-year design project · demonstrated on a dog model — not a product, not a medical device
- Arduino Nano 33 BLE · sender + receiver
- 2×
- vitals · heart rate · temp · activity
- 3
- BLE sample · 5-min averages to TF card
- ~2 s
- marginal bill of materials · owned parts excluded
- $39
- C. Bowman, J. Li, R. Ng, Z. Kilani, “Dog Health Monitor Device — Design report,” GE1501 (Cornerstone of Engineering), Prof. Gillen, Northeastern University, Fall 2023.
- Arduino — Nano 33 BLE Sense documentation and the ArduinoBLE library (central/peripheral roles, GATT services); SparkFun MAX3010x, Maxim DS18B20 / DS3231, and Adafruit NeoPixel (WS2812B) references for the sensor and output drivers.
- VCA Animal Hospitals and PetMD on the value of early pet-health monitoring (the report’s motivating sources).
Skills
Level qualifiers as stated in the record
- FEA / SIMULATION
- Abaqus/Explicit contact models · Python scripting (developing) · MATLAB post-processing
- PROGRAMMING
- Python, C++, Java (intermediate) · Swift
- DESIGN / FAB
- Fusion 360, AutoCAD (intermediate) · parametric CAD-as-code · FDM 3D printing
- ELECTRONICS
- Arduino · Bluetooth Low Energy · sensor integration
- METHODS
- DOE / parameter sweeps · ANOVA, t-tests, regression · agentic AI workflows
Leadership & civic
Off the bench: vice-president of an education-equity student union; initiated a left-behind-children program and took the proposal to municipal government; organized the 2023 Boston–Hangzhou youth exchange — a bilingual history play staged at Boston City Hall; host & translator of “Talents Talk”; three-plus years tutoring physics, first invited by a professor.