1. AlecMuller–LibertyTechnologies,Inc.
Objective Principal Mechanical Engineer seeking contract product development work in southern NH or
northern MA. On site or remote.
I’m passionate about robotics, teaching engineering skills to others, and learning to develop new
products faster. Fluent in SolidWorks and Creo (Pro/E).
Education Master of Science, Mechanical Engineering: Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA
Bachelor of Science, Aeronautical Engineering: Caltech, Pasadena, CA
Work
Experience
6/2016 to Present Sunrise Labs Auburn, NH
Periodically help Sunrise with mechanical engineering work on projects when they’re busy.
Robot architecture research & proposal, medical equipment design, etc.
I supply my own computer and SolidWorks license.
8/2015 to Present Farm Design Hollis, NH
Periodically help Farm with mechanical engineering work (similar to Sunrise).
Medical equipment design, FEA, mechanism design & simplification, tolerance analysis, etc.
I supply my own computer and SolidWorks license.
4/2015 to 10/2015 Crowd Source Robotics (internal project) Goffstown, NH
Designed, built, and tested a high performance robot drive module. video photo
Documenting the design in a tutorial fashion. Especially check out the Architecture
worksheet, which walks students through the speed and pushing-force calculations.
Vision is to work with the FIRST Robotics community to build an ecosystem of robot modules that
help students learn robotics-development skills, and to shorten product development schedules.
Designed in SolidWorks Premium, which I own a seat of (2010 through 2016 versions).
GrabCAD for PDM.
1/2013 to 4/2015 Astronics AeroSat (under Matt Landel, JR Hoell) Amherst, NH
Led the mechanical engineering development of a pair of aircraft-to-satellite motorized gimballed
antennae.
Performed gear ratio calculations to ensure adequate torque at -55°C.
Performed tolerance and CTE analysis to ensure the designs work over a 140°C
temperature range with components that have a broad range of thermal inertia.
Performed extensive cold-temp acceleration testing & analysis with thermal chambers.
Supervised pointing accuracy tests on a vibration table, analyzed results.
Both gimballed antennae were powered in 4 axes (azimuth, elevation, polarization, and
keyhole-avoidance).
Worked within an FAA-approved regulatory framework for ECOs & qualification testing.
Wrote design guides and procedures for designing, manufacturing, and inspecting FDM 3D
printed parts for production use.
Worked in PTC Creo (CAD) and Windchill (PDM).
11/2010 to 12/2012 Philips Color Kinetics (under Ray DeBruin) Burlington, MA
Lead Mechanical Engineer for a family of wall-grazing LED light fixtures.
Designed & ordered many rounds of prototype and production-tooled parts including sheet metal,
injection-molded plastic, post-machined extrusions, and wire harnesses. Maintained top level
8 Mountain View Drive
Goffstown, NH 03045
Phone: 603-264-2873
Email: alecmuller@gmail.com
2. BOMs for approximately 120 different flavors of the product.
Interfaced with Electrical Engineers (PCA control drawings, fit-checking in CAD, EMI mitigation),
Optical Engineers (lens dimension, material & finish specification), Industrial Designers
(incorporating aesthetics & human factors), Manufacturing Engineers (designing for the best
processes appropriate to our expected volume levels), QA Engineers (designing test plans for
them), Compliance Engineers (getting UL & CE rule clarifications), Marketing & Project Managers
(requirements & scheduling).
Adapted quickly to frequent requirement changes. Pushed back on changes where appropriate
(always constructively and respectfully, sometimes passionately); still did what I was asked to do.
Helped identify inadequately specified requirements and suggest better ones.
Worked in SolidWorks and EPDM, as well as ARENA web-based BOM management.
2/2010 to 11/2010 Misc. Contract Work Manchester, NH / Shanghai, China
Designed enclosures in SolidWorks and Pro/E for Helix Design in Manchester, NH.
Provided Segway with onsite technical support for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. Covered
subsystems I helped design the year before (see below) as well as other subsystems. Guided
local technicians in maintaining a dozen prototype vehicles that drove autonomously for 4,000
performances in front of a live audience.
10/2008 to 11/2009 Segway, LLC (under Ray DeBruin, JR Hoell) Bedford, NH
Led the design, fabrication, and mechanical integration of a two-axis robotically-balanced
concept-level vehicle in 3 weeks with two other engineers and several technicians.
Led the mechanical design of the “sliding chassis” for a development-level vehicle; this sub-
system houses batteries & charging electronics while securing the 3 other major sub-systems (a
two-person “coach”, a lower “fixed chassis” that moves relative to the “coach” & “sliding chassis”,
and a “slide actuator system”) to each other.
Designed the development-level nose-wheel landing system, which includes a mechanically
driven (and force-limited) hydraulic brake actuator, redundant wheel-touch sensors with EMI
shielding, and catastrophic energy absorption. Interfaced with off-site coach designers, who
placed tight space-constraints on the system.
Led the first mechanical integration of the full system (i.e. the Segway powerbase that drives the
GM EN-V concept vehicles):
Planned and implemented the two-week build schedule for the first machine,
Learned how to assemble each subsystem from its respective engineer,
Documented assembly issues, worked around them, organized rework,
Managed the check-out and hand-over to the embedded systems team (and associated
paperwork),
Led technicians in assembling 3 more machines, and
Used photos and a wiki to write detailed work instructions that documented the assembly
process and let us hand subsequent builds completely over to technicians.
Worked in Pro/E Wildfire 4 and Windchill, as well as ARENA web-based BOM management.
8/2007 to 10/2008 Farm Design, Inc. (John Longan, JR Hoell) Hollis, NH
Introduced the use of hyperlinked Word documents to keep track of all of the analysis done on a
project to make it easier to hand off to new people.
Created a series of Excel templates to speed up beam and other hand calculations, and make
them clear to others during design reviews.
Designed several axes of a pick and place robot for Perkin Elmer.
Turned around large numbers of drawings (both critically dimensioned and fully dimensioned) in a
short period of time.
Worked in both SolidWorks and Pro/E Wildfire.
3/2006 to 8/2007 DEKA R&D (Chris Evans) Manchester, NH
Designed, tested and debugged 13mm diameter bi-directional one-way clutches for use in a
3. prosthetic hand for DARPA’s “Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2007” project.
Built test rigs to evaluate elastomeric elements for use in measurable compliance.
Interfaced with electrical group to convert PADS files into Pro/E and fit-check circuit boards;
suggested chip placements to optimize interstitial space & reduce the height of a 3-board stack
inside the prosthetic arm. Designed heat sinks for these boards.
Used ANSYS FEA to optimize a torque cell for humeral rotation, making the element lighter than
the original and reducing peak stresses by a factor of 3.
Tested power consumption, efficiency, holding torques, and speed/torque performance
envelopes for all 5 major arm joints on a dynamometer with a DAS.
Supervised a rising college freshman intern in designing and rapid prototyping a wearable circuit
board housing on a one-week schedule.
Worked in Pro/E Wildfire and Windchill.
5/2004 to 12/2005 Makers PD (Kevin Webber, JR Hoell) Manchester, NH
Performed CAD work using Pro-E Wildfire (and Mechanica) and SolidWorks.
Rapidly taught self to use both CAD packages from scratch.
Was the go-to guy for FEA & spreadsheet analyses.
Corresponded with vendors to get quotes and orders for SLA’s, SLS’s, custom springs and
machined plastic parts.
Skills Leading groups of engineers and technicians to complete technical development projects
Reviewing requirements, writing test plans.
Teaching skills to others
FMEA & Pugh Charts (creating and using them); Gantt Charts (using them)
Pro/E Wildfire 3, 4, CREO: Solid modeling & drawings (recently used), surfacing, animation
Programming robots with sensors using Arduino
SolidWorks: Solid modeling & drawings (currently used), surfacing
Windchill, PDMLink, Pro/Intralink, EPDM software (Windchill most recently used)
ARENA bill of materials system
ANSYS, Cosmos, and CFDesign FEA for mechanical and thermal analysis
MATLAB, MathCAD, Maple, BASIC, Pascal, C (they are rusty)
Hand-prototyping skills including machining, woodworking, etc.
Volunteer
Work
9/2006-Present FIRST Robotics Teams 1512, 2342 Concord & Nashua NH
Mentored FIRST Robotics Team 1512 “Metal Vidsters” for 5 seasons
Mentoring Team 2342 “Phoenix” for 6th season; primary SolidWorks mentor all 6 years.
4
th
season as Lead Mechanical Engineering Mentor; currently invest 500+ hours per year.
I help students learn to think like R&D engineers. I demonstrate techniques and ask questions
that build on their current abilities. I keep tabs on the robot’s development and help our student-
leaders identify and stay focused on the critical path. I push for simplicity, iterative design, and
extensive testing. Together we build a 150 lb robot in 45 days.
Nominated twice (2014 and 2015) by the students for the Woodie Flowers Award for “clearly
explaining mathematical, scientific, and engineering concepts”.
In 2015, my team made it to the World Championship in St. Louis and performed well enough to
be an alliance captain in the Archimedes Division playoffs.