Projects

Things I have built.

Robots, vehicles, furniture, electronics, simulations, retro computing experiments and workshop stuff.

Written up

Projects with photos, notes and moving parts.

Robot Arm

Somewhere to run policies trained in MuJoCo and find out where the simulator and the hardware disagree. Printed cycloidal joints, servo drives, a bus and a lot of wiring.

Open project

RViz screenshot from robotics assessment work during the MSc.

After twenty-odd years of building production systems I went back and did the maths properly. Nine taught modules, from knowledge representation to reinforcement learning, and a dissertation on robot learning.

Open project

A curved weathering-steel balustrade on a terrace overlooking fields.

Corten Balustrade

Curved weathering steel for the terrace edge, checked with FEA before cutting anything expensive, then left to weather.

Open project

A CV packaged like a 1990s boxed software product, on a bookshelf.

CV in a Box

I wanted to know whether a CV people pick up beats a CV people skim, so I packaged myself like a 1990s software product.

Open project

Drift Trike

An electric trike built to go sideways. Steel frame, 72V battery, controller wiring and a lot of welding.

Open project

A wall-sized bookcase filled with books, with a rolling ladder.

Mega Book Case

A wall of books, built in sections around an existing window. Then it needed a rolling ladder, which became its own project with machining and welding in it.

Open project

Spiral Staircase

A way upstairs without taking up the whole courtyard. Curved steel, fitted around a building that was already there and not square.

Open project

A timber steam box on a terrace for bending skirting board.

Curving Skirting Board

I built a house with curved walls, so the skirting board had to be steam-bent to follow them.

Open project

Daniel and his son with the finished standing desk top in the workshop.

Motorised Standing Desk

A height-adjustable desk built with my son, mostly as an excuse to spend a day in the workshop with him.

Open project

Bright sparks coming off a lathe while cutting hardened steel.

Lathe Sparks

Hardened steel, a CBN insert and an old Colchester Chipmaster.

Open project

Close-up of an Original Prusa MK4 toolhead.

3D Printer Build

An Original Prusa MK4 kit, built over Christmas. It now makes parts for most of the other projects on this page.

Open project

Warm vintage-style string lights fitted across a kitchen ceiling.

Vintage String Lights

Shop-bought lighting would have lit the room. I wanted it to feel like somewhere specific, so: twisted cable, warm filament bulbs and made fittings.

Open project

An array of hand-wound electromagnet coils for the robotic chessboard.

BEng Chess Board

Final-year Mechatronics project from Leeds: a robotic chessboard, hand-wound electromagnets and report scans from 1997.

Open project

Two unfinished plywood active speakers on a workshop bench during microphone measurement.

KingRO4Y Active Speakers

SEAS drivers, Hypex FA503 amps, FreeCAD cabinet work, measurement sweeps and a wireless volume knob that is not finished yet.

Open project

Belly Board

Won a competition, spent the prize on a day course shaping a wooden belly board in Cornwall.

Open project

On the pile

Built, photographed badly, not yet written up

Ben Eater 8-Bit ComputerA CPU built from logic chips on breadboards.
Otter SurfboardA wooden surfboard, built on a course in Cornwall.
Shadow PrintingLight, shadow and geometry used as a printing process.
Speed BoatHull shape, hydrodynamics and woodwork that has to survive water.
Home AssistantRelay-panel lighting control for the house.
MG EV ProjectElectric vehicle tinkering, charging infrastructure, home-energy data and a smart-lead idea.
Clock ProjectDisplay hardware, and the business of keeping accurate time.