Ivan Hallmark

For my senior design project at UB I'm developing a hamburger vending machine. Custom PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) are essential for a project like this, especially for automation and control systems.   The biggest wins with custom PCBs for this project are being able to handle high current and fully customize the motor drivers. Bonus points come from reducing the size and complexity of the wiring and providing better fail-safes for food and safety compliance. PCB schematic   I used KiCad for this project from start to finish, and found it really straightforward to use. There is a lot of documentation on the internet which made the learning process enjoyable, and going from concept to finished project only took a few hours.  The trickiest part of making the schematic was determining which symbols were appropriate, as even motors and buck converters had many variations of wiring. I solved this by finding images from the part source (e.g. eBay, McMaster Carr, etc.), s...

During my time as a dental assistant, I used some advanced imaging techniques to take pictures of people's smiles. One of these people was myself, and I used this power to make my teeth nice and sparkly. By using a CBCT machine and taking impressions, I made the whitening trays shown in the pictures.  CBCT, or cone beam computed tomography, is what I used to take a high-resolution picture of my head. It's like a traditional X-ray, but a rotating arm allows multiple images to be taken from different angles.  Photo of myself using the CBCT machine Once the images are taken, they are combined into a single 3D render of my teeth and gums. This is done automatically with the CBCT machine software.   Although it would've been super cool and kind of futuristic to turn this rendering into a whitening tray, it was instead used to make sure my gums and teeth were healthy enough for whitening. They were! Working model The process really began with making a 3D model of my teeth....

This was a fun project I made with the goal of living like an awesome pirate. For years I've had a dream of building a huge pirate ship and embarking on the high seas in search of treasure. And every ship's captain needs a sweet sound system. In this project, I learned how to convert electricity into radio waves and scored experience with electronics and programming a Raspberry Pi. By putting an antenna on one of the pins and flashing both audio files and radio software on its SD card, my little computer was able to transmit FM signals. I purchased a Raspberry Pi 4, heat shrink tubing, jumper wire, and a micro SD card. It was my first time seeing a micro SD in person, and it was super cute - literally the size of a fingernail. Flashing Raspberry Pi OS onto the micro SD card was notably straightforward. This is the only time I've used a Linux product and not had Stack Overflow open in a different tab. I powered the Raspberry Pi on, and connected to it via SSH. I used the Fin...

This project became a highlight of my summer vacation, fueled by the idea of printing money off the school computers once break was over. Mining cryptocurrency is something that's always interested me, as is creating things from scratch, so taking this on just made a lot of sense.   I opted to mine Bitcoin over other cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin largely for its ease of implementation. Bitcoin Core, a software for validating the blockchain, has some handy features for sending data to Python. Mining Bitcoin is straightforward: a hashed string is publicly shared, and computer algorithms rapidly attempt to guess its solution. While hashing is similar to encryption, it is a one-way process. Unlike encryption, which can be reversed with a key, hashed data cannot be converted back to its original form. Block info and CPU usage The operation begins with Bitcoin Core transmitting the latest blockchain information to a Python script, which calculates the mining target and forwards ...

During a previous internship, I designed and built a motorized cherry pitting machine. The project began with a set of 2D drawings left by an engineer who had retired over ten years prior. I translated these drawings into 3D models, and then developed them into a fully functional machine. Rubber tray close-up A later batch of cherry trays. We opted for a rubber that was food grade, easy to clean, and flexible enough to quickly remove and replace. I was concerned about the cups being so close to the edge of the trays, but it ended up not being an issue, even after extensive testing. If anything, the slight deformity where the cups and tray edge met helped offload the cherries, similar to the lip on a water pitcher.  2D drawing example Stainless steel parts were designed, analyzed, and tested using SolidWorks and SICAM Punch.  Early prototype Thanks to a handy 3D printer in the office, testing was super efficient. Leaving a few metal components in place for structural support, t...