My Projects

Along with being a photographer, I'm an Electrical Engineer. I've worked with hobby electronics since early high school, and below I've written pages on a few of my projects.

Click the "Read more" button to see a more in-depth article about each project.

Smart Scoreboard

I made a sports scoreboard that adds a point when a T-Pose is detected and subtracts a point if a surrender cobra pose is detected. The Raspberry Pi and Arduino are powered by a Ryobi battery. It is my largest 3D printed project to-date, and my first machine learning project outside of school.

IEEE Competition

I was the TA and leader for the IEEE Robotics team at Clemson. Our team won the IEEE SoutheastCon Hardware Competition for Clemson's first time since 1986.

Freelance LED Sign

I worked with VisionTech LED Solutions to make a custom animated hexagon LED sign. I designed, fabricated, and programmed the controllers and power distribution system for the more than 3200 individually addressable LED's inside of the sign. The project was installed behind the welcome desk for a large company at one of their storefronts.

WallPaw

A 2' by 2' Clemson Tiger Paw laser cut from wood, with edge-lit acrylic pieces. It is back-lit by individually addressable RGB LED strips, remote controlled, and can react to music.

Christmas Light Show

I created a Christmas light show to Tiger Rag and some other songs. The lights change to music and the show can be started by pressing a button beside the sidewalk.

Nixie Tube Clock

Nixie tubes are gas-filled tubes with the numbers 0-9 inside of them. Nixie tubes were commonly used in the mid-1900's for displays on electronics. I used an Arduino Mega to display the time using four nixie tubes.

Mini-projects

These are projects that I've done that either didn't take very long, or aren't big enough to deserve their own page. I learned a lot from most of these projects, as small projects are often my way of testing ideas before implementing them in a "real" project.

Arduino Controller for Ceiling Lights

October 2017

I made a controller for WS2812 lights on my ceiling that uses the same light functions as the WallPaw. It has an Arduino Uno and Mega, a boost converter for voltage, a microphone, an IR receiver, and a RF receiver.

Edge-lit National Champions sign

March 2017

I wanted to test out edge-lit acrylic using the addressable LED's before I made a big project with them. I learned a lot from this little test project.

Heater Alarm Clock 4.0

2013-2017

My room is often really cold in the mornings, so I programmed a heater to turn on before my alarm. Now my room is nice and toasty when I need to get out of bed.

Backlit LED Horse Head

November 2017

This project was a present for my friend Lauren Smith. It is a laser cut+etched horse head with battery-powered LED strips behind it. There are ~20 built-in functions it cycles through with a button.

Sports Photography Tutorials

January 2019

I wrote short blog posts about taking pictures for a variety of college sports. Each post covers where to enter and put your bag, where you can/can't go on the field, and recommended camera settings.

Motorized & Automated Window Curtains

February 2019

I used a stepper motor to open and close my window curtains. It is connected to my Echo so "Alexa, open the curtains" does exactly that. Scheduled to open every morning at the time of my alarms.

Iron Man

A hand-painted geometric Iron Man laser cut from wood and lit with LED strips. It is 3.5 feet tall by 2 feet wide. The lights are controlled by a phone app through Blynk and an ESP8266 microcontroller that is powered by a large battery pack on the back.

Wall

Art

I made this piece using laser-cut wood overlaid on a printed picture that I took in Iceland. I hand painted the sides and "ICELAND" text.

Laser Harp

It uses 13 red laser diodes and 13 photo-resistors to simulate harp strings. When you break a laser beam with your finger it will play a note. The front panel has buttons that let you change the key (Chromatic, B-flat, F, C, etc), octave (low, medium, high), and volume.

Jacob Thompson Photography

/Engineering