Olin Baja SAE Learning Goals Automotive Design Suspension Design Steering Design Skills Developed Working on Task Based Teams Suspension and Steering Design Theory Designing for Fabrication Year 2022-2024 My Role Suspension Sub Team The Baja SAE team was the first project team I joined at Olin College. Most of my work has been done on the suspension sub-team working on designing the A-arms, steering rack placement, and tuning the suspension and steering. The Olin Baja team, especially during COVID-19, had very limited structure and hadn't qualified for a Baja competition in 4 years. Also with this lack of structure came a complete lack of documentation on the previous designs and design theory supporting them. This forced us to look to other teams and resources when it came to learning how to design our next car. While slow, this process taught me how to find existing design theory, in this case, the theory for suspension and steering design, and how to interpret and take inspiration from our competition. In 2024 our team successfully qualified and participated in the Baja SAE event. The event created a huge number of areas for revision on the car as well as validated and invalidated many of our designs and choices. My current role on the Baja team is redesigning the steering mechanism to improve and reinforce it over the system we had last year. The two things I'm aiming for in the next generation of the car are to have perfect Ackerman steering and to start considering the instant centers and roll centers of our car in our design as this is not something that has been done previously. Me giving a lesson to the suspension sub team on designing for roll and pitch Previous Next

A Keyshot rendering of an impeller I designed Smaller & Past Projects cam-track 2023 cam-track was a project to develop a camera tripod that used computer vision and a pan-tilt mechanism to autonomously track a subject. I was the mechanical lead for this project, in charge of designing the pan and tilt mechanism and the head of the tripod. This project was formational for me because it taught me the importance of taking small steps and having lots of prototypes for each function of the design. I built just two prototypes of the entire mechanism for my part of this project. This left the final design with issues that could have easily been worked out had I broken the design into its different functions and made small prototypes along the way. cam-track website Strandbeest 2024 Strandbeest was a project that used MATLAB to create and simulate and animate the Strandbeest linkage(also know as Jansen's linkage). The simulation was based on a series of initial guesses for linkage length and pivot coordinates that were used as inputs into a root solving algorithm that we developed. Using root solving we were able to define a feasible set of linkage lengths and pivot points that defined our linkage. This project was a challenge for me as it used MATLAB in a way that was both new and a bit intimidating to me.. That being said I was also very excited for this project because being interested in suspension design it is a massively beneficial tool for looking at suspension behavior and loading. Paper on Simulating the Strandbeest Video of Strandbeest Simulation Mechanics of Solids and Structures 2023 Mechanics of Solids and Structures is the introductory class to static solid mechanics at my college. At the end of the class, there are two finals, one, a final test which isn't very interesting to show here, and two, a project to create something helpful, fun, and eye-catching for future students taking the same class. I made a tool to help build intuition around force and torque for which a presentation can be found below. Mechanics of Solids and Structures Presentation Thermal & Fluids Dynamics 2023 I had minimal knowledge of thermodynamics going ito this class but found the number applications for thermodynamic and fluid modeling to be very enticing. Coupled with the fact that much of the analytical analysis can be done by hand a relatively easily validated I wound up thoroughly enjoying this class. This class taught me how to set up and run experiments, how to identify areas of error, and what reasonable assumptions in testing are. It also helped me develop my simulation skills using MATLAB to simulate the heat transfers throughout systems. Here is a project on conduction through fins that demonstrates a few of these skills: Thermal Dynamics Poster Mechanical Analysis 2024 This project was a first look into designing seat brackets for a racing seat that would go into my school's Lemons car(a 24 hour endurance race with a budget cap of $500). While this project isn't particularly rigorous it was helpful for me in creating an understanding oh which simplifications for hand calculations might be appropriate and which are not. FEA of a Seat Bracket Engineering For Humanity 2023 This project was based around helping someone with severe dementia and mobility restrictions get into a car. This project was interesting because our client was someone who, due to her dementia, could not express her needs. This taught me to be particularly observant of pain points, not just created by the problem being addressed but by the proposed solution as well. Another challenge with this project is that it didn't have a solution that could fix all of the problems we were encountering. This forced me to distinguish between the parts of the problem I could and couldn't solve, and to then focus on the things I could improve. Final Engineering For Humanity Presentation Lowe Hardware 2024 Lowe Hardware was my summer internship for summer 2024. I was an Intern/Production Associate responsible for assembly and documentation of the prototype unit of a new product line: Ghostop. I had full control of the documentation, assembly and packaging processes. I was also in charge of creating training videos for the assembly of the new product line. Outside of establishing the new product line I also worked on whichever team had the most backlog. This included running hand lathes, mills, and CNC machines, and work in the buffing rooms, fishing rooms, and the assembly room. This gave me a top-to-bottom understanding of the milling and finishing processes that allowed me to design jigs and streamline the workflow. Along side my work I was also able to shadow the senior machinists, engineers, and managers. This gave me a chance to gain insight and tools from the people who developed and stared Lowe hardware. Through this internship I gained a better understanding of the structure and management of a smaller company and the teams within it. I also got to experience what it takes to integrate a new product line into an existing ecosystem. Cars While it lacks the same academic merit as some of the other projects I've taken on, one of the more important projects in my development as an engineer has been working on cars; specifically my own car. Before I had my own car I worked on a local rally team that raced a Saab 900 in a handful of rallies throughout New England. This was my first real introduction to engineering as the other members of the team were engineers by trade who came together on weekends to work on the car. This was also my introduction to suspension design, as my first task was to help modify and refine the suspension geometry. As soon as I got my own car I started to work on it. Through my work I started gain understanding of the function of many of the parts in my car as well as gain insight into the design choices that were being made by the engineers making the pats. Many of the mechanisms that I use in my nonautomotive designing are inspired by my knowledge of these systems. The experience I've gained working on cars has made me more mindful of the life of the things I design after they've left my hands. It has also allowed me to build an intuition of common failure points, areas of oversight, and the effect even the small design choices in engineering can make on people's safety, enjoyment, and perception of what they're interacting with. Previous Next

My Portfolio Welcome to my portfolio. Here you’ll find a selection of my work. Explore my projects to learn more about what I do.

Hemp Aero Kit Learning Goals CFD, Aero Design, Project Management Skills Developed CAD(SOLIDWORKS, onshape) CFD(SOLIDWORKS, Ansys) Project Management Composite Fabrication Year Fall 2024 My Role Founder, Project Manager, Designer Why I started this project: I started this project because I'm interested in aerodynamics, especially pertaining to cars, and neither my school or the automotive project teams at my school offer any opportunities to learn CFD or aerodynamic theory/design. This project is on going but I reached the end of my first design and fabrication so I will be reflecting on that. Having started this project from scratch in September the first big hurdle was finding people who were interested and willing to dedicate there time. Luckily, I found a handful of people who were also interested in aerodynamics including one person who had access to our school's previous generation formula car which would be come the base for this project. The design process was also really enjoyable if not quite everything I had hoped it to be. The original goal was to design fully bespoke airfoils in Ansys, but due to a lack of computing power and issues with cross compatibility between Ansys and Solidworks we ended up researching airfoil profiles and integrating them into our design instead. While not the original goal, I think this process of optimizing established airfoils was likely more beneficial to my learning and understanding of aerodynamic design. If it had worked to design our own foils from scratch they likely would have been under-optimized which is where I personally found the most learning to be in the design process. The fabrication process was almost entirely new to me. I choose to fabricate the front wing as it was the part I designed and I thought it would have the largest effect on the car and offer the most learning opportunities. I won't go to far into this process as it is documented quite well in my YouTube series(linked on the right) on this project but seeing all the work my team and I had put in throughout the semester was extremely gratifying. Link to the Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLupOQxK7Bfe8FLjMPqqw6_MVvJu3c0CgR Why This Matters to Me: For me, this project is significant for two reasons. Firstly, I enjoy performance vehicles and performance design and believe that both can bring a lot of joy to the people involved. Secondly, I believe that developing automotive technologies through competition is an important part of developing technology for consumer vehicles. Why Hemp: I'm interested in hemp because it is significantly safer to work with and has a much lower environmental impact than traditional composite weaves. Hemp composites are less used than their glass and carbon counterparts so I had a bit of a learning curve in fabrication and testing but untimely was quite pleased with how it performed. The weave I had, which was chair upholstery, was a bit to thick to be ideal but with some extra epoxy it was still stiff and strong enough for this case. As this project continues I'd like to do more testing on the material specifically in pursuit of a proper fiberglass substitute. Previous Next

Pelagic in Greenland Trip Rockland Maine - Sisimuit Greenland Year 2023 Position First Mate/Chief Engineer Trip Log 6500 nautical miles Captain Skip Novak Photographer Alton Coolidge The purpose of the trip was to bring a film crew from the BBC to photograph Auk's in Greenland. Ultimately the BBC was unable to get proper visas in the wake of covid and the trip became a scouting venture for future charters and a training opportunity for green crew members. Having done a similar trip under Kirsten Neuschafer on the same boat a few years prior, I was brought on as the first mate/engineer. While the roles are generally very communal on board I was in charge of one of the three watches, maintaining the engines aboard, and bringing the newer crew members up to speed. To the right is a picture of me teaching the three newest crew members how to splice and dead-end the lines. Traveling through iceberg flows and poorly charted waters put me in a position where I was often solely responsible for the safety of the boat and everyone on board. Being in this position made me doubly aware of how important attention to detail and preparation are. Failing to see a submerged iceberg or not having the boat ready for a change of sails or change of course could have had dire consequences. With the consequences in mind, the importance of getting help early when trouble arose was paramount. My instinct typically is to persevere on my own instead of waking up my crew members for help. However, I quickly realized this was not an option and simply endangered myself and my crew members. Tasks on the boat were far more likely to go awry when done with only one set of hands especially when cold and dark so I had to learn to become more lenient on when help was needed and more comfortable with asking for help often. This was one of the big lessons I took away from my trip and is a lesson that continues to to prove its merit time and time again. More information about the trip can be found on Skip Novack's News Letter: News Letter Previous Next

Press & Publications Spaces and Places 2035 CAD 2035 Room 93 Podcast 2035 MaXimalisM 2035 Oak 2035 Zone 2035 Tectalism 2035 GRID 2035 T.B.D. 2035 White Space 2035 DODODO 2035

Alton Coolidge I'm a third year engineering student at Olin College of Engineering. Within Engineering I'm interested in automotive and motorsports engineering as well as sustainability engineering and design. Outside of engineering I enjoy exploring, sailing, rugby, handball, photography, art, and driving. Why Engineering? I choose engineering because it is the cross-section of many of my passions and it gives me a way to contribute to the world around me. I'm specifically interested in automotive engineering because I see vehicles as an integral part of nearly everyone's day to day life and believe that through elegance and beauty in design and through dependability and passion in engineering they have the ability to positively impact the people who interact with them. Part of this goal and my concept of engineering is that I strive for the things I engineer to be accessible to anyone who wants to use them. I also believe that my choices within engineering should not come at the cost of the beauty or well being of the world around them.

Kyaro Assistive Tech Learning Goals Working on a tight budget Mechanical Design Using analysis to inform design decisions Skills Developed Iterative and Team Design CAD/FEA Working Under a Contractor Year 2024 My Role Project Manager/ Designer/Fabricator The goal for this project was to develop a tilt in space wheel chair that could be used and built in Tanzania by Kyaro Assistive Technologies for under $70. A tilt in space wheel chair is one that allows the user to recline, in our case up to 45 degrees, without moving the center of gravity enough to make the chair unstable. The tilting function is important for users where spinal compression needs to be limited or actions like swallowing are difficult. Most available tilt in space wheelchairs are easily over $1000 dollars and require lots of high end machinery to fabricate. In our case we we're limited to $70, hand tools, a drill press, and stick and mig welders. For our prototype we choose to use a four bar slider linkage. This allowed us to keep the movement of our center of gravity minimal without the complex geometries typically used in tilt and space wheelchairs. The translation of the center of gravity with a pivot at the back of the seat. The translation of the center of gravity with a pivot at the back of the seat and our slider mechanism acting to counteract the displacement of the center of gravity in the x direction. When deciding on the lengths of our linkages we used MATLAB to simulate the sliding motion and then parameter swept through our possible linkage lengths to determine the lengths that minimized the movement of our center of gravity. Visual representations of the movement of our center of gravity are to the left. Using Tanzanian stock pricing we were able to build our wheel chair for $44.84. The chair worked as intended with a few tweaks needed to base in order to increase stability. More details about the project can be found on the project website here . Working under a tight budget and with limited tooling was a fun challenge and created lots of areas for problem solving. For this project I focused on using analysis to reinforce my design designs and find redundancies in our design in order to lower cost and weight. I was also focusing on designing for manufacturability, specifically minimizing the importance of tolerancing as the the stock in Tanzania has much more variance than it does in the US. An exploded isometric view of all the parts we designed to integrate our tilt in space mechanism to Kyaro's existing wheel chair base. Previous Next

Alton Coolidge Mechanical Engineering: Olin College of Engineering 2026 Skills Design/CAD With passion for aesthetic, practical, and mechanical design I'm skilled in prototype sketching, drafting, SOLIDWORKS and Fusion. FEA/CFD With the practical side of design and mechanical design comes the need to evaluate the real world performance of the designs. To accomplish this I'm experienced with FEA and CFD as well as competent with hand calculations for quick evaluations and checks of intuition. Rendering/Fabrication/ Photography Also important to design is being able to convey the work done in a professionally way. To accomplish this I am proficient in KeyShot renderings, machining, fabrication, and photography. PROJECTS Projects Hemp Aero Kit View Project 01 Project Manager/Designer Student Led Group 2024 Smaller & Past Projects View Project 02 Olin College 2022-2023 Pelagic in Greenland View Project 03 First Mate Pelagic Borealis 2023 Kyaro Assistive Tech View Project 04 Mechanical Design Olin College 2024 Baja & Formula SAE View Project 05 Suspension and Steering Olin College 2022-2024 About Background I was born in Round Pond Maine surrounded by derelict old vehicles and books with peeling spines. At an early age, I enjoyed and was encouraged to adventure and became enthralled with those adventures and all the vehicles that brought me on them from my feet to improvised rafts and leaking old boats, to the pedals of my bike and as I learned to drive the wheel of my car. Now that I'm a student at Olin College of Engineering I'm looking for ways to spread the joy I experienced through adventure and the vehicles that accompany and create it.