Resume PDF - DOC

Cover Letter PDF - DOC

My name is Arthur Petron. Friends call me Darthur. I am currently a Senior at the Massachusetts institute of Technology. I study Mechanical Engineering with an emphasis on product design and manufactuing techniques. I work at the MIT Media Laboratory where I help to design new all-electric concept cars for urban environments. I also have worked to design enclosures for PCBs, mobile robotics, develop advanced ornithological monitoring systems, prototype 802.11x overlay TCP and UDP socket networks, analyze amino acid sequences to look for life-saving patterns, and just about anything that hinges slightly on mechanical engineering or computer programming.

I love to do anything that involves building things. Before coming to college I built a pneumatic cannon that could launch baseballs over 400 yards using only 40psi. I hold a provisional patent on a wheelchair device developed during my time with Product Design Processes, a class where teams work to solve real world problems with real clients. I also held a provisional patent on a device that converted elemental carbon and hydrogen into useable hydrocarbon fuel.

I am an Engineer:

I use all the resources I have avalable to me to develop new things for class or for fun. I worked to create an enclosure for the prototype-a boards of the Hundred Dollar Laptop. I’ve also worked with new composite technology to provide cheap and usable composites to everyone, not simply those with the money or knowhow.

I am a Designer:

Design is my passion. There are a few links to design projects in the ‘Design’ category and ‘Projects’ page on this site. I enjoy design from simple to complex, from balanced incense holders to mechanical speed indicators. I design mostly in my head, but enjoy sketching and CADing ideas to save for later use.

I am a Programmer:

Understanding information is the key to discovering new things. It is very difficult to be creative on a small knowledge base. I write programs to learn about things. It is fairly uncommon in my experience for a mechanical engineer to know several programming languages (including the code that runs this website), but I find it useful in everyday life, and would think it prudent for programming to be taught in grade school.

I am a Teacher:

During the Independant Activites Period, held over the month of January at MIT each year, I am the part of the mechanical staff and help with teaching staff for a class called MASLAB. I have also been an undergradutate teaching advisor for a class called Design and Manufacturing I.

I am a Photographer:

I am an active photographer for The Tech - MIT’s student newspaper, but I really enjoy taking photographs just for fun. It’s a great way to express visually ideas that one is attempting to purvey to others. It’s also fun to show people what you’ve been up to.

Factors Affecting Creativity in the Product Design Industry
Too often is creativity use simply as a buzzword without considering its deep philisophical underpinnings. The individuals behind todays coolest products are required to have a very specific skill set: the creativity of an artist with the analytical skills of an engineer. Of these two skills, creativity is still a topic that is largely misunderstood. What factors hinder creativity in this field? What factors help it flourish?

Old Projects:

Enhanced Wind Turbine
The idea of hooking 40,000 volts up to an airfoil doesn’t seem like it would do a whole lot, but with certain configurations, the electrical potential energy can be dissociated into the air around the airfoil, causing it to have intresting effects on the air flowing past. The result is increased boundary layer adhesion, which basically makes the airfoil more efficient. For more details on this project, please review the full report by clicking the title.

Forced Hydrocarbon Formation
Hydrocarbons, the stuff that makes up our plastics and polymers — and more importantly our fuels — are made of hydrogen and carbon mixed together in different ways. If one takes hydrogen and carbon, puts them in a jar and shakes them together, he ought to be able to get different permutations of hydrocarbons similar to what is found when drilling for oil. This project aims to investigate just that. Solid carbon is gassified through ionization in a 99% hydrogen atmosphere and the two are allowed to react. The most interesting thing about the process is the fact that the ionization requires a powerful electric arc to work — something that generally causes hydrogen to explode. Fortunately it only does so in the presence of an oxydizer (like the oxygen in air).