William Schrab | Engineering Portfolio

Matlab Prosthetic Knee Linkage Visualizer

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Skills used

MATLAB
Object Oriented Programming
Mechanism Design
Simulation
Visualization

Goal

Create a GUI that allows users to visualize the mechanism of a knee that uses a simple 4 bar mechanism design. The programs allows for changing of the 2 input and output links, visualizing of sitting, midswing, and standing positions, animation, view of one stride, video and photo exporting, and more. The final code is 1200 lines of code and broken into 12 functions.

Injection Molded Remote

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Project Goal

The goal of this project was to create a part able to be realistically injection molded using principles discussed in class.

Hardware Skills Used

3D Printing
Lasercutting

Software Skills Used

SOLIDWORKS
Prusa Slicer
Protolabs (online injection molding analysis)

Technical Information

Material: ABS
Average wall thickness: 0.08 inches

3D Printed Model

Design Report

Click here to view or download the full PDF in a new tab

Future Improvement

For future versions of the project I would like to model the interface between the main plastic body and the remotes metal faceplate. I couldn’t do this in this first version because my remote that I was modeling couldn’t be dissassembled without permanetly breaking it. I would also consider trying to shink the wall plate to more closely fit the remote. Another future goal would be to design the key for locking the back onto the remote to be able to be injectio molded instead of its current state of being metal and screw based.

Transfer Mechanism

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Project Goal

Create a mechanism that is able to move a ball through 3 randomly given precision points that can be mounted onto a pegboard. The mechansim must recieve a ball from the previous group and transfer it to the next group.

Hardware Skills Used

3D Printing
Lasercutting
Analytical and Graphical Mechansim Synthesis

Software Skills Used

SOLIDWORKS
MATLAB
Lincages
C++ (Arduino)

Technical Information

The mechanism is a motion generator because it not only moves through 3 specific points, but the dyad at the tip of the mechanism has to only rotate a certain amount before the golfball falls out.

About

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 09:54:14 -0600

My Background

I am a Junior Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. I have experience in CAD and design of research testing systems.

Technical Skills

Software: SOLIDWORKS, CREO, MATLAB, NI LabVIEW, Python, C++, Docker

Hardware: 3D Printing, CNC Machining, Microcontrollers

Professional Work

Lab Assistant, Li Resarch Group, Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Minnesota

Skills: Solidworks, LabVIEW, PID Control, Documentation, SOP creatioin, Test Fixture Design and Manufacturing, Collaboration, Team Management

String Braiding Robot

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Skills used

Creo
KiCad
Vectors
Arduino IDE

The Challenge

Design a robot using an arduino to complete a simple task

The Tech Stack

Microcontroller: Arduino Uno R3 Algorithm: PID Control Loop

Implementation

I wrote a C++ loop that reads the sensor values and calculates the error from the center line.

Hardware Design

Frame: Lasercut wood board Power 12 Volt battery

Video 1: Robot running in its earliest programming form

Water Heater Cart

Wed, 06 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Work in progress page

Project Goal

The goal of this project was to create a cart that could be used to test an electric heat pump on a water heater.

Research Goals

The research being conducted is to improve the cold weather efficiency of heat pumps, in particular those in water heaters. As temperatures near the evaporator side of a heat exchanger get below 0 the water that condenses on them can freeze. This freezing can cause frost build up and greatly decrease the performance of a heat pump. Here a coating is in developmenet to greatly delay the time until frost growth and spreading

Heat Map Program

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Skills used

Python
Visual Studio Code

Final Goal

Create a program that displays a heatmap that updates in real time for a space. With a final goal of being able to run as a containerized add-on in the home automation software Home-Assistant

Progress

Currently the program runs in the simple python GUI editor tkinter. Users see a grid which they can select where their sensors are on the grid and enter temperature values for those sensors, to act as an temporary manual input.