An end-to-end design study of a small-scale hydrogen rotating detonation engine, carried from literature review to a working reacting-flow simulation. An RDE replaces the subsonic flame of a conventional combustor with a detonation wave travelling continuously around an annular channel.

I sized the combustor against the Bykovskii and Wolanski operability criteria, modelled it in Fusion 360, and built the reacting-flow case in CONVERGE CFD with detailed hydrogen chemistry, adaptive mesh refinement and periodic boundaries on an unwrapped annulus. The reference case reproduced a sustained rotating detonation wave, confirmed by front structure, periodic wrap-around without decay, and monitor-point pressure periodicity.

It is a demonstrated methodology and a qualitatively correct detonation, not a validated engine: wave speed was never compared against Chapman–Jouguet velocity, the cell-count cap ruled out a grid-convergence study, and the figures show that case rather than the custom geometry.

Combustor bore	75 mm
Annulus width	2 mm
Chemistry	SAGE solver, LLNL hydrogen mechanism
Solve time	About 4 days on 4 cores

Tools: CONVERGE CFD, Fusion 360, Tecplot, ParaView, Python.

Repository on GitHub

A physics-based RC aircraft design studio that outputs print-ready hardware. Give it an aircraft type, a mission, a cruise speed and a size box; it solves the coupled weight–aerodynamics–stability problem, returns five different aircraft, renders them in 3D, and exports CAD with servo pockets, wire runs, hinges, control horns and a magnet hatch already cut into the part.

Every number on screen is a real calculation: ISA atmosphere, NeuralFoil polars at RC Reynolds numbers, a spanwise strip model for the neutral point, tail-volume stability for tailed layouts. The CAD is the hard part: one watertight solid for the STL, a STEP assembly of named bodies, print-in-place captive-pin hinges, and every boolean existence-checked because OpenCASCADE will report success on an operation that did nothing.

Three generated airframes were run as full 3D RANS cases on SimScale to check the internal physics against a solver that knows nothing about it; the small figures show the flying wing's streamlines and surface pressure at 20 m/s. One generated wing was printed in LW-PLA and test-flown.

Test suite	348 passed at the v3.1 gate
Aircraft families	6
Validation	3D RANS, k-ω SST, on SimScale
Best lift-to-drag in CFD	7.27 at a single angle of attack

Tools: Python 3.12, FastAPI, CadQuery and OpenCASCADE, NeuralFoil, three.js, SimScale.

Repository on GitHub

Head-mounted thermal vision from a Raspberry Pi 4, a TOPDON TC001 USB thermal camera, and a pair of analog FPV goggles. The TC001 is built to plug into a phone; I wanted it to drive a headset and behave like an appliance: apply power, put it on, see heat.

The Pi pulls the 256 × 192 LWIR stream over V4L2 at 25 fps, renders it for seeing rather than measuring with local contrast enhancement and a light unsharp mask, and pushes NTSC composite out of the A/V jack. It boots straight into the viewer with no desktop, and the goggles' own input switch doubles as a mode switch between the drone feed and thermal. Latency and battery life have not been measured yet.

Camera	TOPDON TC001, 256 × 192 LWIR
Compute	Raspberry Pi 4
Capture	V4L2 at 25 fps
Output	NTSC composite into analog FPV goggles

Tools: Raspberry Pi 4, Python, OpenCV, V4L2, shell.

Repository on GitHub

A CoreXY 3D printer built from Rolohaun Design's open-source Rook 2020 MK2 and documented so the build can be reproduced or continued from another machine: the Klipper config, the CAD assembly, and an attributed parts list.

BTT SKR Pico driving four TMC2209s over shared UART, Klipper and Mainsail on a Raspberry Pi, sensorless StallGuard homing on X and Y, and an HDX-Lite direct drive feeding a Bambu X1 hotend. Extruder calibration and resonance tuning are still open, and the repo says so.

Build volume	120 × 120 × 92 mm
Frame	2020 aluminium extrusion
Control	BTT SKR Pico, four TMC2209 drivers over UART
Firmware	Klipper with Mainsail on a Raspberry Pi

Tools: Klipper, Raspberry Pi, BTT SKR Pico, Fusion 360.

Repository on GitHub