Joined the FSAE team as a sophomore during a full program reset, when no members had experience with a running electric car or real braking data. Developed a multi‑file MATLAB program to model brake‑rotor heating and cooling by processing simulated race data (time, speed, acceleration, air temperature) and applying linear‑interpolated time steps. Using experimentally measured material properties, the tool calculated energy transfer from vehicle deceleration to rotor friction work and heat loss to the environment, giving the team its first reliable estimates of rotor temperature ranges and performance behavior. 

Promoted to System Engineer one quarter after joining, taking responsibility for intern management, project evaluation, and subsystem development. Led the design and integration of the pedal system, expanded the Brakes team through structured outreach, and built a training pipeline to raise technical competency across new members. Managed the sub-team budget and introduced standardized project‑documentation templates to ensure consistent, multi‑author engineering deliverables. Represented the Brakes subsystem in leadership meetings and ran system‑level reviews to align technical direction. Implemented data‑acquisition hardware and workflows, capturing the first real‑world rotor temperature data in team history to validate thermal models and refine material and geometry decisions. 

As Lead Brakes Engineer, I oversaw all technical and operational aspects of the Brakes subteam. I allocated the annual budget based on performance data and system‑level priorities, managed promotions and member affairs, and structured project teams of 2–4 engineers with senior members acting as project owners and new members supporting design and validation. This framework expanded design exposure and leadership experience across the team. I drove schedule adherence, ensured technical milestones were met, and maintained a leadership standard of contributing more than I expected from others. My focus was to be a reliable, approachable lead whose decisions members trusted and who fostered a high‑performance, supportive engineering environment. 

From summer to winter, I led the complete redesign of the pedal subsystem after determining that no components from previous years were salvageable. Using only the prior silhouette as a reference, I developed a ground‑up design featuring pocketed T6‑6061 aluminum pedals that achieved a 50% weight reduction while increasing stiffness. The reduced pedal mass allowed for a more robust mounting structure to mitigate bending under load. Although rules required the pedals to withstand a 2 kN input, the 5:1 pedal ratio and under‑mount configuration meant the mounting bolt needed to sustain approximately 12 kN. The final design exceeded this requirement with a safety factor of 1.5, well above rule minimums and beyond what any driver could realistically apply. The assembly used A36 steel sheet‑metal brackets for mounting and CNC‑machined T6‑6061 aluminum with a .0009” hard‑anodized coating for wear and erosion resistance. Grip tape was added to the pedal faces to improve driver feel and control.  

Developed a large‑scale MATLAB program that processed ~40,000 telemetry points to compute kinetic‑energy dissipation and the corresponding heat flux into the brake rotors. Design iteration was initially bottlenecked by SolidWorks modeling time, since each new rotor geometry required full CAD reconstruction to extract mass and geometric properties. To overcome this, I built a secondary rapid‑evaluation tool that generated simplified rotor models with varying drilled‑hole patterns, enabling fast comparison of geometric effects on heat transfer. This workflow finally allowed the team to predict realistic rotor temperature ranges and select geometries optimized for thermal performance.