I partnered with a student startup in Georgia Tech’s CREATE-X entrepreneurial program to perform all physical product engineering for three consumer biometrics devices.

• Casing Design: I designed both the two-factor fingerprint authentication (2FA) device and the single-factor fingerprint authentication (SFA) device in SolidWorks and prototyped them by using FDM and SLA 3D printing, respectively. For a later version of the project, I modeled a facial-recognition SFA device and printed it on an FDM 3D printer. To check on the heat produced and to change electronics, I added a sliding acrylic back viewing panel, which was cut on a waterjet, into the 2FA device.

• Electronics: The 2FA device comprised of a Raspberry Pi 3B+ microcontroller connected with a PiSugar Lithium-ion battery/module, a capacitive fingerprint sensor, and a SparkFun 12 button keypad, whereas both SFA devices used a Raspberry Pi Zero W microcontroller and did not require the keypad. The SFA device using facial recognition used a small camera, which connected to the microcontroller with a flexible printed circuit (FPC) that I routed through the casing.

• Thermal Management: Both devices were enclosed consumer electronics devices, so to be safe, I attempted to manage the heat produced by the electronics by adding aluminum alloy heat sinks to the CPUs, making sure there was ample space, and having removable backs to dump heat if needed.

Skills & Techniques:

• Consumer Devices Product Design

• Basic Thermal Management Techniques

• Electromechanical assemblies and tolerancing

• Designing considering biometric sensors, lithium-ion batteries, and microcontrollers

• Rapid prototyping