Category: Legit Projects
Big projects like science projects or personal projects that I do over a long period of time and write longer posts about
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This was my 2025 Synopsys Science Fair project. Regrettably, I didn’t get to spend as much time as I’d have liked on it. Introduction Clay is an extremely important material because it is cheap (often literally dirt on the ground), durable, and easy to work by pressing, casting, or forming. However, drying clay parts presents challenges since the ideal drying rate is a balance between minimizing drying time and preventing uneven drying. This is particularly important for prototyping or experimentation where many iterations must be made in sequence. In practice, an ideal drying rate is difficult to obtain in ambient…
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Introduction This post describes a project I did in the past. It was the first project that I did more-or-less independently of parental encouragement, and I learned a lot of skills in the process. I’d say that this project is the precursor to all my other projects. At some point, my mom bought a wooden go-kart. The frame was built in an “𐌆” shape with a string wrapped around the steering column (a dowel) moving the swivel-mounted front wheels, kind of like a bow drill but in reverse. A brake lever pulled a cable that pulled a wooden board …
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This was my 2024 Synopsys science project. Abstract While liquid cooling presents itself as an efficient cooling method for ever-hotter integrated circuits, it is confined to mostly commercial applications and occasionally premium desktops. Instead, high-performance laptops rely on heavy and bulky heat pipes to bring heat from processor to radiator, somewhat defeating the purpose of a portable computer. I aimed to create a ferrofluid pump without moving parts capable of cooling a laptop effectively. My solution involved creating a closed loop of ferrofluid and pumping it magnetically. I tested four different designs: three using traveling magnetic fields in different forms…
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The Idea Is Born In my opinion, an ideal alarm clock should: have an easy-to-read time display, produce a very loud and annoying ring, be able to set alarms with multiple criteria, and, of course, tell the time accurately. Most alarm clocks on the market satisfy no more than two of these criteria: very basic analog alarms are very loud and have good displays, but are technologically very “dumb” and are not exactly accurate, digital alarm clocks also have good displays and decently loud alarms, but are similarly dumb and inaccurate, and “smart” alarm clocks like Amazon’s Echo line are…
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I realize that the field of hobbyist 3D printing is rapidly advancing and that this post may become obsolete very soon. How I Got It I got this printer used for $30 on Nextdoor in 2020. It was a Wanhao Duplicator i3 v2 that came with frame braces, a glass bed, and a Cobra Cooler fan duct. At the time I knew almost nothing about the details of 3D printing, only the theory, which can be summarized in the sentence “hot plastic extruded in layers to form an object”. Upgrades After seeing the first layer fail to go down many…
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This was my science project for the Synopsys Science fair which I participated in in 2023. Abstract 1.2 billion people worldwide need to boil water to make it drinkable, even in places considered developed. This is because boiling is simple, versatile, and accessible. While water is commonly boiled, it must take in lots of energy to reach its boiling point. After this, the scalding-hot water must then release that energy and cool for between 45 minutes several hours before it is drinkable. The two opposite steps just outlined lead to a solution: by using a heat exchanger, the boiled water…
