Work Experience
- I am working as a Product Engineer in the Special Products Group of Fisher Controls in Marshalltown, Iowa. I am responsible for answering and providing engineering input to inquiries from sales and manufacturing around the world for a number of Fisher sliding stem product lines. Additionally, I work on engineering orders that are outside the scope of Fisher’s normal catalog, which often contain unique material, temperature, and/or pressure requirements.
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I worked as a Python developer within Bell’s Innovation group, primarily focusing on fleet simulation and DevOps.
- Rearchitected a SQL server data analysis workflow with Databricks and Azure Batch to save over $30k annually
- Automated testing, static code analysis, and deployments with Azure Pipelines
- Developed a process for repeatable mass deployments of mission software onto air-launched drones
- Participated in test events and provided on-site customer support for mission-critical software
- Simplified Python code distribution and re-usability using JFrog Artifactory
- Volunteered with the Bell Vertical Robotics Competition for high-school students as the lead software engineer writing control software, documentation, and answering student questions
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- Performed systems tests of a new Citation Latitude simulator before and during customer acceptance to ensure simulator correctly replicated the behavior of the real aircraft
- Researched alternative software to generate large certification documents and developed a proof-of-concept in LaTeX for greater engineering efficiency
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- Modelled a prototype light guide apparatus for a research experiment in the Physics department
- See Projects for more details
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- Collaborated on a diverse Agile scrum team as part of the software design process for Military Avionics Fusion Flight Management Systems
- Developed and maintained tests for Ada avionics software to ensure DO-178B certification conformity
- Worked with requirements and traceability from high-level system functionality down to software code
- Prototyped improvements to the KC-46 Remote Vision System, including developing a working air-to-air refueling scale model with a 5-axis robot
- Co-invented a laser projection system to calibrate stereoscopic cameras (US11360375B1)
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- Inspected power supply control units at customer sites across Southeast Iowa
- Provided remote support and traveled independently to customer sites representing power company
- Developed new software independently to generate GPS coordinates from a list of customer addresses to reduce time spent driving
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- Converted existing 767 Large Display System flight deck retrofit into a brand-new supplemental type certificate for 757 aircraft
- Updated old drawings to improve conciseness, maintainability, and readability
- Engineered new parts and installations and drafted technical drawings
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- Developed custom applications for engineering automation using Inventor API
- Automated bill of material creation process to reduce engineering time by 192 times
- Setup and configured new Autodesk Vault Pro server
- I was responsible for all cleaning tasks along with feeding and caring for the dogs
Skills
Skills
Certifications
- Ham Radio Technician Class License
- Level 1 ShopBot Basic CNC Certification
- SOLIDWORKS Mechanical Design Associate
- License C-P29LMTJLE2
- SOLIDWORKS Mechanical Design Professional
- License C-4E3UMXYK2A
Clubs
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- Implemented IT asset tracking and management software
- Administered and managed Windows Server for team which ran Autodesk Vault
- Devised new backup system for Autodesk Vault server
- Coordinated with university IT to implement new wiki software for the team to help improve collaboration and knowledge transfer
- Rebuilt website from scratch with new content management system software to improve speed, maintainability, and user experience
- Created helpdesk and provided hardware and software support for team computers
- Worked with university IT to create, deploy, and update standardized Windows images for team computers with SCCM
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- Developed airbrake system to allow rocket to precisely reach target altitude
- Used computational fluid dynamics to evaluate potential airbrake performance at different altitudes, velocities, and deployment angles
- Developed drafting standards and drafted mechanical components
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- Designed seatbelt anchorages and ran finite element analysis to meet race regulations
- Communicated with numerous companies to secure seatbelt donation
- Developed custom bracket assembly to convert donated office chairs into seats for the vehicle
Projects
MSFS Mod Manager
MSFS Mod Manager is an external mod manager for the new Microsoft Flight Simulator. It lets users quickly install and manager their third-party addons for the simulator. It has over 30 stars on GitHub and is built with Python 3 and PySide (Qt).
Date: Fall 2020
Source Code: https://github.com/NathanVaughn/msfs-mod-manager
Linkspring
I developed a severless web app for users to create a page to consolidate all of the links they want to share with other people (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, GitHub, etc) in one place. I solely did all of the work on it including design, back-end work, front-end work, and development automation. It was primarily built with the Python Flask framework and runs on AWS Lambda with DynamoDB as a database. The vast majority of the codebase was covered by unit and integration tests which were automatically run on every pull request. Every component, including a duplicate development copy, was hosted within AWS. Billing was handled by Stripe.
Date: Summer 2020 - March 2023
Link: https://lksg.me
Physics Light Guide
I modelled an apparatus to channel light into a series of detectors for an experiment a professor was working on in the Physics department. At the base is a 10cm x 10cm calorimeter of 47 x 47 fiber optic fibers. The light coming out of these fibers needed to be funneled together into a 5 x 5 array of detectors. Multiple different variations of parts were designed with differing wall thicknesses and heights to accomplish this. One concept was intended to be injection molded as a single part, with an interior mirror finish. Another concept was to laser cut pieces of mirrored stainless steel and glue them together into separate “towers”. I made all of the parts in Solidworks with a lot of lofts and different configurations (as 47 doesn’t split into 5 nicely, the groupings of fiber optic fibers had to be differing sizes).
Date: Spring 2020
My Blog
On my blog, I make posts about various projects or technical challenges I have been working on. All content is written in Markdown. There is no ad revenue from it and is just something that I enjoy writing.
Date: Fall 2019 - Present
Source Code: https://github.com/NathanVaughn/blog.nathanv.me
Link: https://blog.nathanv.me
pyQstat
pyQstat is a small Python-based web app to display Sun Grid Engine (and forks) statistics. This was built for the High-Performance Computing cluster mentioned before.
Date: Spring 2019
Source Code: https://github.com/NathanVaughn/pyQstat
High-Performance Computing Cluster
I assisted in designing and constructing a Beowulf-style compute cluster for PrISUm out of recycled hardware. The cluster consisted of seven desktops with quad-core Intel Core i7 processors with 8GB of RAM, each running a build of CentOS. This gave the cluster a combined compute capacity of 28 CPU cores and 56GB of shared memory. All of the nodes were connected on a local gigabit ethernet network. The head node of the cluster ran Sun Grid Engine for job scheduling and had 1TB of network storage for applications and user workspace. The cluster was primarily used by the team for computational fluid dynamics simulations with STAR-CCM+ and MATLAB optimization problems. When the cluster was not in use, it contributed to community grid computing projects.
Date: Spring 2019
My Website
Using what I learned while building prisum.org, I rebuilt this website around the Hugo static site generator. The content and theme are tightly coupled around structured data files (example). The theme is built with MaterializeCSS for the main CSS framework, lazySizes for lazy image loading, and MixItUp for categorizing projects. Multiple npm scripts along with CloudFlare pages are used to automatically generate all CSS and JS assets, build the site, and publish it on every commit automatically.
Date: Fall 2018 - Present
Source Code: https://github.com/NathanVaughn/nathanv.me
Link: https://nathanv.me
PrISUm Website
I rebuilt the prisum.org website completely from scratch with new content management software. Previously, the site was entirely hand-coded, which made updates extremely difficult and time-consuming. Rebuilding the site with new browser-based content management software and templating massively increased maintainability, along with allowing non-developers to easily and quickly make content updates. In the process of rebuilding the site, I implemented lazy image, font, and CSS loading, automatic image resizing and compression, critical CSS generation, and no-reload page transitions which reduced monthly bandwidth usage and page load times by 95%, improving SEO.
Date: July 2018
Link: https://prisum.org
Piper Cub Project
I modelled a Piper J-3 Cub as part of a team for a class project. All work was done in Solidworks.
Date: April 2017
High School Library Study Room Renovation
I made renderings of a concept study room during high school. The renderings were created with Solidworks. This study room ended up getting funding and was made a reality.
Date: January 2016
