Outside the Lab
I am usually active and like to spend my time playing both individual and group-based sports. I love road biking during the warmer months and also participate in indoor spinning classes during the colder Boston winter months. I also play soccer and tennis – weather permitting, and tried golf for the first time in the Summer of 2020.
Participating in the Hub on Wheels 2019 event, a 45-mile bike ride around Boston.
First ski of the season.
Learning to golf!
3D Printing:
Artificial Brain inside a Human Brain: I use Home Assistant loaded on a Raspberry Pi4 to control and automate IoT enabled devices around my house such as wifi bulbs and zigbee motion sensors. Since the pi is the “brain” of my house, I decided to 3D print a human brain housing for it. Special shout out to Dr. Woods who free sourced this 3D model of his brain and for giving me the project idea!
DIY EBike: I converted my old mountain bike into an electric bike for my daily commutes to the lab. I purchased a 500W hub motor kit from here, and designed and 3D printed a custom housing for the motor controller. I also added an emergency kill switch. Using a 32V 10Ah battery, I typically averaged 60 miles of pedal-assisted biking. I also designed a mount for the battery that made it very easy to attach and remove it from the bike.
Click here to see the parts in 3D.
Bicycle Steer-Stopper: Everytime I wanted to lock my bike to a bike rack, or just have it stand on its jack stand, the front wheel would turn inwards and my bike would fall over. So, I designed a bike steer-stopper that when engaged, prevents the handle bar from turning. This has made locking my bike hassle-free since I don’t have to constantly worry about my bike falling over.
Click here to see the parts in 3D.
A plaque to celebrate my brother’s first Marathon. It shows the path he covered through his run. This was my first experience with multi-color prints.
This is one of my favorite prints. The power button on my girlfriend’s Pixel 3 phone broke off, making it pretty difficult to lock and unlock the phone. I 3D printed a power button that worked perfectly as a replacement for the original button.
This was my first attempt at printing lithophanes, and it turned much better than I’d expected. I used this website to create the lithophane and printed it with 0.08mm layer height with 100% infill.
Educational Resources:
Here is a list of some of the resources I have used throughout the years to learn new concepts. In a way, this section also represents the topics and fields of interest to me. I mainly created this section to catalog the resources I have found useful when learning about a topic, and so I can always go back and revisit them if I need a refresher.
This is a growing list and I am always eager to find new sources to learn from. If you know of a useful resource for the topics below, I would love to know about them so feel free to contact me through social media or email to share them with me.
Resource
1) The NeuroMatch Academy is a fantastic new resource to learn about many different data analysis techniques used in the field of computational neuroscience. I am currently working through the videos and have found them very helpful and easy to understand.
Concepts Covered
Modeling: Generalized Linear Models (GLMs)
Dimensionality Reduction: PCA, t-SNE, FA, GPFA
2) Control Bootcamp by Steve Brunton: This is a series of YouTube videos by Professor Brunton that covers the ABC’s of Control Theory. This bootcamp was one of the first resources that got me excited about control theory.
Linear systems analysis, Stability and Eigenvalues, Kalman filtering, Robust control and more..
3) Essence of Linear Algebra by 3Blue1Brown: Grant Sanderson is well-known for his effective use of graphics to explain complex concepts. This video series contains great graphical visualization of matrix manipulation that visually explains the concept of eigenvalues and eigenvectors among other Linear Algebra concepts.
Basics of linear algebra such as matrix manipulation, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, dot product and cross product.
4) A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation: This is a great book for someone starting in the field of Robotics. It starts by covering simple concepts such as homogenous tranformation and builds up to more complex topics related to robot manipulation and control.
Forward Kinematics, Inverse Kinematics, Modeling and Control of Dynamic Systems, Holonomic and Nonholonomic Constraints
5) Feedback Control of Dynamics Bipedal Robot Locomotion: I read this book while taking the Legged Robots class taught by Professor Alireza Ramezani. The book is a great resource for anyone interested in legged locomotion of robots.
Modeling systems with hybrid dynamics, Hybrid Zero Dynamics (HZD), Virtual Constraints, Zero Moment Point (ZMP), Feedback Control, Optimization