JACOB VALDEZ
  • Jacob
  • Engineering
  • Programming
  • Blender
  • Videos
  • Presentations

Engineering Showcase

​I've always loved to design and build things. As a kid, I would regularly take apart toys to see how they worked, and I loved LEGOs and other building toys. I knew I wanted to be an engineer when I grew up.
Some of the notebooks I filled up with ideas as a child
Some of the notebooks I filled up with ideas as a child

Limboid

October 2013 - Present
The Limboid is a human-like robot with semi-intelligent autonomy designed to automate unsafe manual activities. Its biped structure supports walking, climbing stairs, and jumping. Two arms each host seven degrees of freedom attaching to asymmetric human-like hands. It uses an electrochemical cell to power inductive continuous motors and a small pneumatic system for manual work. This portion of the HyperSystem of Things Project encompasses primarily the engineering challenges to building an autonomous biped robot. 
Though not yet finished, designing the Limboid has demonstrated to me the value of design conventions as they allow intellectual property protection. This project has impressed on me the value of Math. It demanded learning advanced calculus, differential equations, material science, statics, dynamics, and thermodynamics.
You can see my project files for the Limboid here.

Vex Marble Sorter

January 2016 POE
​Group project by Jacob Valdez, Isaac Valdez, and Kaden Garcia in Principles of Engineering
Working on the VEX robotics project taught me how to work with groups, control systems, and programs. Above is the program used to control our robotic marble sorter. According to programming practice, it is thoroughly commented.

Cookie Cutter

May 2015
The Cookie Cutter is an experimental plasma cutter. Its plasma cutting feature never was made operable though aluminum foil strength plasma cutting was achieved in research. The Cookie Cutter can successfully coordinate a tool head using Cookie Cutter CookieControl.
See also CookieControl under programming

Puzzle Cube Project

March 2015 project from Introduction to Engineering and Design course
inventor.zip
File Size: 2041 kb
File Type: zip
Download File


Dolphin Rocket

October - December 2014
The Dolphin Rocket is a water bottle rocket capable of reaching soaring altitudes. The design process used to create it is fully documented in the video below.

Power Book Pro

Spring 2014
A cool laptop look-alike to write and store my 'files'. The origonal PowerBook was made from cardboard and fell apart.

CookieBaker 3D Printer

Febuary - May 2013
My first ever attempt at building a 3D Printer. My twin brother wrote the slicing software and I (unsucessfully) attempted to build the hardware. As you can see below, there is no Z-platform. I made another attempt at building a CookieCutter 3D printer in Fall 2014 with more progress but still no complete system.

Metal limb

December 2013
6061 aluminum limb for a robot called the Limboid that I wanted to make.

Robot arm

Fall 2012
I used Lego Mindstorms and the extreme NXT micro servo motor extension to build a robot arm. Unfortunately, it did not produce enough torque to lift itself up, nor did I get a picture of the assembled robot.

B8 'Bait' Processor Concept

Summer 2012
A simple processor design concept. The B8 stores a copy of all its register values, that way it can demultiplex registers twice as fast as conventional architectures. I didn't really make detailed designs though.
Unless noted, all projects are personal, not demanded by academic courses.
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Jacob
  • Engineering
  • Programming
  • Blender
  • Videos
  • Presentations