Welcome, I'm Nolan.

Engineer building controls, optimization, and product systems.

Scroll down to view my projects

Mar 2025

Gravity Battery Control System

A translating-drum spooling system and feedback controller designed to reduce cable wear and lower winch cost for Renewell's gravity battery platform.

Final report Project code

Arduino
PID Control
CAD
Mechanical Prototyping

Gravity battery team assembling the winch prototype

Gravity Battery Control System hero image

Gravity battery scale prototype on linear rails

Prototype spooling hardware and cable path

Gravity battery translating drum prototype

Summary

This project was completed with Renewell, which is a startup repurposing abandoned oil wells into gravity batteries. The winch in Renewell's system has to spool and unspool large cable repeatedly, and the existing approach created wear that threatened the long-term economics of the platform.

We designed a translating-drum spooling system that moves the drum laterally as the cable winds. We built a 1/5-scale prototype, and used encoder feedback with a PID-style controller to coordinate drum rotation with translation.

My role was designing the control system, creating the CAD, assembly, and testing.

Interactive CAD model of the translating-drum winch assembly used to package the spool, frame, translation rail, motor, and cable path.

Mar 2026

3D Gaussian Splatting

Comparing SLAM frontends for online 3D Gaussian Splatting, comparing how pose estimation affects reconstruction fidelity.

Final report Project code

OpenVINS
ORB-SLAM3
VGGT-SLAM
3D Gaussian Splatting
Python

CDF of position error for evaluated SLAM systems

Comparison of SLAM estimator outputs for 3D Gaussian Splatting

Trajectory error comparison across SLAM frontends

Summary

This project compared how different SLAM estimators affect online 3D Gaussian Splatting reconstruction quality. We used the RPNG AR Table Dataset, and ran OpenVINS, ORB-SLAM, and VGGT-SLAM estimators to generate point clouds and pose estimates.

With this visual odometry, we reconstructed the scene using 3D Gaussian splats. We compared the estimators in terms of their positional accuracy before recreating the Gaussian splats and their effectiveness in creating the final reconstruction. My role was to run the OpenVINS estimator, generating one set of point clouds, and matching it to the camera frames.

The reconstructed scene using 3D gaussian splats and ORB-SLAM, which provided the highest fidelity reconstruction.

May 2026

Airfoil Optimization

A Hess-Smith panel-method airfoil optimizer with a live portfolio demo.

Project code

Python
NumPy
Hess-Smith panel method
Nelder-Mead

Summary

This project is a live airfoil optimizer for NACA 4-digit geometry. The browser streams candidate airfoils while the backend evaluates lift, pressure, and moment behavior with a Hess-Smith panel-method solver.

The optimizer searches maximum camber, camber location, and maximum thickness, then ranks feasible shapes with a semi-empirical modeled drag coefficient instead of using inviscid pressure drag as the objective.

This version is a demo version of the full airfoil optimizer, which has more configuration options and can be found at the GitHub link.

Airfoil Optimizer

Idle

Live Geometry

Waiting for run

CurrentBest foundNACA 0012NACA 2412NACA 4412

Summary

No result

Maximum camber-

Camber location-

Maximum thickness-

Lift coefficient-

Modeled drag coefficient-

Lift-to-drag ratio-

No optimization run yet.

Nov 2025

Altitude Sensor Fusion with GNSS

Kalman filter project fusing smartphone GPS and barometric data to produce cleaner altitude estimates than either sensor alone.

Final report Project code

Kalman Filter
GNSSLogger
Phyphox
Python

Altitude heatmap over a 2D GPS path using Kalman-filtered altitude data

Altitude Sensor Fusion with GNSS hero image

Altitude comparison of barometer, Kalman filter, and GPS estimates over time

Building 310 benchmark disk and data collection spot

Campus elevation map with route colored by elevation

Altitude heatmap over a 2D GPS path using fused location provider data

Altitude heatmap over a 2D GPS path using GPS-only data

Summary

This project fused smartphone GPS and barometric pressure measurements with a Kalman filter to produce cleaner altitude estimates for campus elevation mapping. GPS provided an absolute altitude reference but was noisy and low-rate in the vertical direction, while the barometer tracked short-term elevation changes more smoothly but could drift with weather and calibration error.

By calibrating the pressure-derived altitude and tuning the filter to use GPS as the long-term anchor, the final estimate preserved the barometer's local smoothness while remaining tied to a usable absolute reference for route interpretation. My role was designing the trials, running reliability tests, and comparing the fused data.

About

Engineer, designer, runner.

I'm an engineer who likes things that are efficient, artistic, and sustainable. My recent work has mainly been in robotics. I'm also particularly interested in green energy, athletic performance, and aerospace.

I earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford in 2025 and an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering in 2026. I competed on the varsity track & field team there, specializing in the 10,000m and cross country. I still spend most of my free time running and surfing.