Things I've built.

I'm Ben Ziegler, a mechanical engineering graduate from Lafayette College. What I like most is designing and building robots end to end: the mechanical design in CAD, the fabrication in the shop, the electronics that tie it together, and the control code that makes it all behave. My capstone was a remote-controlled swift-water rescue craft where I led a team of eleven and owned the control system. Before that I spent four years in FIRST Robotics designing and building competition robots, from drivetrains and climbers to a mid-season rebuild between events, and captained the team as a senior.

The common thread is hardware that has to survive contact with the real world. I've tuned a controller against GPS feedback on open water, built a chassis to take hits on a competition field, and trained new members on the CNC and the rest of the shop. I also write software when a problem calls for it, which is where the automation tools on this site come from. I'm aiming my career at robotics or manufacturing, so if you're working on something in that territory, I'd like to hear about it.