Side projects

Hardware

I worked on a few projects revolving around interfacing a Raspberry Pi with the physical environment. Sometimes, the Pi acts as a receiver, with temperature, humidity, ultrasonic, or IR sensors; sometimes as a transmitter, with an IR emitter or a printhead. Sometimes, it runs a web server, yielding an “internet of things” device. The specific devices I have built are,

• HydroPi, a hydroponics system based on the Raspberry Pi.
• Paparazzi bird feeder.
• RaspAC, a Raspberry Pi AC controller.
• Bioprinter for printing cells onto Petri dishes.

Software

I am an occasional contributor to the special functions module of SciPy. I wrote the current implementation of spherical Bessel functions, and am working on and off on a better algorithm for evaluating the confluent hypergeometric function.

Others

I sometimes ask and answer questions at Stack Exchange: Physics. I am especially proud of my explanation of a simple DC motor, easily the most enjoyable piece of physics I did in graduate school.

I am also slowly working my way through Project Euler.

On the more artistic side, I laser-cut flowers (photos, design) and play paper-and-pencil roleplaying games.