Hey! I’m Juan, a Spanish Junior Electrical Engineering student, and a Martelian. Big fan of the OEDK, and currently part of the RICE Hyperloop team, working on the electronic controls and cold-gas thruster propulsion modules. I also make the odd thing from time to time, like my moded Jet Scooter.

Something that I’ve made that I am proud of is what I colloquially call the “Plasma Cannon”. Its essentially a device that fires an extremely hot and dense ring of plasma of a specific gas, into a target, forcing certain chemical reactions in the target. It allows you to essentially “coat” a target with specific substances, which vary depending on the gas used, target material, and electrode material.

It took me a whole summer to design, manufacture and assemble, but its one of the projects I am most proud of, since it was a big challenge in many different fields at once, like high power electrics, vacuum technology, circuit design etc… And its also visually the coolest thing I have ever made.

Something that I have always wanted to have a go at making, but never really got to it, is an inertial electrostatic confinement fusion reactor, also called a Fansworth Fusor (Google that, its really cool, like a bottled star). A device that creates fusion reactions (consumes much more power than it produces tho…). I built a small prototype with a friend to act as a proof of concept, and we had designs and plans for a larger fully functional Mk2 version, but it became too expensive for a pair of junior highschoolers, so we put it off. I would still love to have a go at finishing it, it would be the most complex project I’ve made.

I hope to learn many things in ENGI 210. From how to properly use machines and manufacturing processes, to how to design parts and systems around the limitations of those machines and processes, and to better think about the overall geometry of an assembly, not just its constituent parts. I cannot count how many times I’ve designed parts that seemed great, only to realise that they were not printable/machinable or that the one screw that holds it all together cannot be screwed in because the screwdriver doesn’t fit 🙁 oh well… Hopefully this class will teach me to stop doing that.