Mechanical Engineering Co-op at Fyto

I completed my second 6-month co-op at a Series A robotics and agriculture startup (link) as a mechanical engineer, where I worked on:

Hands-on design, prototyping, & testing
Manual stress & bending calculations
Industrial circuits & electronics
System design and scale up for production

... and more!

My Projects at Fyto

Liquor Brewing & Delivery System

Solids Filtration & Mechanical Separation

Industrial Circuits & Electronics

Designing and executing a production-scale brewing system from A to Z

Hands-on testing & rapid prototyping using sheet metal, shop tools, & more

Wiring & troubleshooting circuits for robots

Learn More

Gantry Cart Re-Design & Sheet Metal Parts

Applying Design for Assembly (DFA) Principles & Creating GD&T Drawings

Manual Stress Analysis & Power Calculations

Structural analysis & quantitative design for parts, motor loading, and more

Miscellaneous Hands-on Projects

Bandwidth testing, hose connections, metal part assembly, & more

Learn More

Liquor Brewing & Delivery System
Design, Scale Up, & A-Z Ownership

Led the 100x scale-up of an experimental setup into a standardized agricultural brewing process, tackling motor automation & selection, plumbing, and energy cost predictions, serving as the foundation for production facilities covering 25+ acres

Skills Developed:

Motor Automation & Electrical Troubleshooting (motor starters, AC power, etc.)
Power & Hand Tools (saws, drills, etc.)
Design of Experiments
Plumbing, Piping, & Liquid Distribution Systems
Procurement
Spectrophotometry
Energy Cost Analysis
Wet Lab Experimentation
SOPs & Technical Engineering Reports

Purpose:

Design & implement a production-scale liquor extraction & brewing system
Scale up current process from: 1 bucket --> 1000+ gallons
- Brewing process includes: mixing, heating, & aeration
Design a delivery system to serve 1+ acre of farmland
Outline the foundation to serve 25+ acres in the near future

Challenges:

Scaling up as is would require:
- 90kW of power (too much), 5000+ gallons of solution, tanks, etc., 8+ submersible pumps

--> Inefficient; Must rethink brewing process

How do you cost-effectively mix and aerate 1000+ gallons of liquids?
How do you automate mixing, aeration, and delivery on a multi-acre production facility?
No in-house experts on brewing barley straw extract
8 weeks hand-off deadline (from start to finish)

Results:

Designed, implemented, and standardized a production-scale liquor extraction & brewing system
Eliminated the need to use 90kW of power & cut material cost by 9x through re-designing the brewing process (after conducting wet lab experiments, reading literature, & challenging assumptions)
Wrote an SOP and trained the production and operations team on the new system
Shared technical reports & guides with the Plant Science team and how to scale moving forward

Scroll to top

Solids Filtration & Mechanical Separation
Rapid Prototyping & Hands-on Testing

I redesigned the plant-water separation mechanism, tackling fluid dynamics & solids filtration, rapidly iterating through 6 prototypes using machine shop tools, sheet metal parts, and CAD, resulting in complete integration into future production bots