Dharmin Patel
Senior Mechanical Engineering Student at NC State University
Senior Mechanical Engineering Student at NC State University
Hi, I'm Dharmin Patel. I'm currently a senior in mechanical engineering at NC State University.
My main campus involvements include being a Goodnight Scholar, volunteering as a STEM Coach, participating in the Helping Hand Project, and aiding the solar vehicle organization, SolarPack, as the Chassis Design Lead.
Some of my favorite hobbies outside of classes include rock climbing/bouldering, traveling, hiking mountains and trails, calisthenics workouts, and gaming.
I also enjoy working on personal projects that often involve 3-D printing practical or fun creations.
My previous work experiences include performing undergraduate research in Biomechanics at NC State and interning as Design Engineer at Carolina Components Group.
In my Dynamics course, we were assigned to create a raquetball launcher using a spring-based or catapult mechanism. The launcher must be capable of launching
the ball at at each whole foot between 3 and 12 feet. We designed both launcher types via CAD before making a decision on which one to choose. We ended up picking the
spring-based launcher and utilized MATLAB to calculate the distances the ball would travel based on different spring stiffnesses and launch angles. We decided on
a launch angle of 45 degrees, a spring stiffness of roughly 10 lb/ft, and a launch height of 1.05 ft. We also created tables and plots to better represent the numerical data.
The spring-based launcher was manufactured from mainly wooden supports, a clear PVC pipe, a wooden rod, and a spring. The spring was placed around the rod inside the pipe and a handle was attached to the
bottom of the rod to stretch the spring as needed. Lastly, testing was completed to confirm our calculations and adjust as needed.
Using Python and Google's Speech-To-Text API, I created a virtual assistant that is capable of perfomring a varitety of commands based on the
speech input that was given by the user. For example, stating "Hey Jarvis, can you open up Solidworks?" would open up solidworks on my computer.
Saying "Tell me a good joke" would prompt the assistant to verbally tell a joke.
I am currently in an course called AI In Engineering Applications and I hope to incorporate the knowledge acquired from this class into the
virtual assistant. I may possibly create my own method of speech recognition or significantly extend the capabilities and features of my current assistant.
Some of the other features include: creating to-do lists, getting the weather, creating juice recipes based on a container size, and searching the web on Chrome.
The video below demonstrates some of the features capabale of the virtual assistant.
Throughout the spring semester of 2023, I worked on a personal project to create a small generator capable of producing a smooth flow
of hydrogen gas. The generator functions using the process of hydrolysis in which the bonds within water molecules are broken and are separated into
hydrogen gas and oxygen gas.
The body of the chamber was 3-D printed with PETG filament and an airtight coating was layered on top of the body to prevent any leakages.
2 AISI 304 Stainless Steel plates were used as electrodes and were connected together via batteries located outside of the chamber.
The chamber was filled with a solution of water and sodium hydroxide to increase the quantity of electrolytes and complete the circuit.
The produced gases naturally flow to the top of the chamber and escape out of a silicone tube.
If the two molecules combine back together, but this time as gases, they produce hydroxy gas. When hydroxy gas combusts, the molecules combine back
together to once again form water.
