Joshua Duarte

Designer | Maker | Mechanical Engineer

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ABOUT ME

Hi, my name is Joshua Duarte! I am a maker, a designer, and a recent graduate of Texas A&M University where I obtained my B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. During my time there, I had the pleasure of interning at Northrop Grumman, ExxonMobil, and The Boeing Company. Through these experiences I learned about organizational leadership, additive and subtractive manufacturing, and further expanded my understanding of design processes. I also served as the President of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers where I led a team of 8 others in growing the organization to more than 400 members. Through these experiences I have grown to believe in relentless learning, and in my quest for personal growth I've completed projects ranging from an automated intelligent chessboard, a sign language interpreter, to a planner incorporating machine learning. I believe that these projects led me to search for my next challenge: obtaining my masters at U.C. Berkeley, where I am now embarking on an interdisciplinary, team-based capstone project aimed at creating an omni-directional treadmill to enhance a user's virtual reality experience.

EXPERIENCE

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Boeing Test & Evaluation Flight Test Design/Build Intern

May 2021 - August 2021

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UIS Wells Digital Innovation & Automation Intern

May 2020 - August 2020

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Technical College Intern, Aerospace Systems

May 2019 - August 2019

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TAMU SHPE President

May 2021 - May 2022

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TAMU SHPE Director of Technical Affairs

May 2020 - May 2021

PROJECTS

Chessboard
Gambit

A completely automated chess set capable of challenging Grandmasters. I am leading the Hardware Design within the system. Currently in the subsytem design and testing phase.

Chessboard
Blue Gogi: Omni Directional Treadmill

Developing a treadmill capable of allowing users to move endlessly in any direction while maintaining an immersive and safe experience within virtual reality.

Chessboard
HP: 'Phygitally' Connected

Being isolated from the real world, it’s not easy to engage in social interaction or physical movement in a way that feels natural to most people. This project aimes to tackle that problem head on through human centered design methods and the use of immersive technologies.

Chessboard
Calorie Tracker

A project aimed at ensuring proper and methodological weight loss through the act of tracking meals, positive patterns in a user friendly environment created using Python.

Chessboard
BUTLR

A planner that allow users to easily input tasks, events, and habits to then export to a variety of calendar applications. Attempting to incorporate machine learning within Python programming to effectively plan tasks and habits

Chessboard
Machine Learning: Gravitational Effects on Boiling

Used machine learning to explore the interplay of gravity and Marangoni effects during boiling of a water/2-propanol mixture for a range of gravity acceleration conditions.

Chessboard
Sign Language Tracker

Using OpenCV, mediapipe, and tensorflow, this project detects gestures in ones hand that resemble those in the sign language alphabet. The end goal is to see the sign language words per minute speed of the user.

Chessboard
Scissor Lift

A scissor lift that was aimed to familiarize creators with additive and subtractive manufacturing methods like that of 3D printing, lathe operations, mill operations, and other metal working tools. Ultimately held 6 kg with less than 3 millimeters of deflection.

Chessboard
The Right Left

The right left is a sensor based system that was created during a 24-hour hackathon that tackles the dreaded unprotected left hand turns. This system tracked the speed of oncoming traffic and would use pre-measured data to inform the driver.

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Fermii

An iOS based application that would allow users to know when and where their fellow classmates would be studying the same material. This would encourage people to work with one another and learn through teaching. Not only would one benefit from learning from one another, but would be rewarded for it too.

Recognitions

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Future Leaders Academy

Selected as 1 of 40 students to attend this leadership development convention hosted by ExxonMobil.

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HSF Scholar and Entreprenuership Attendee

Recognized as a HSF Scholar by being a part of the 6% that applied and rewarded a scholarship.

Chessboard
Spectrum Scholar

Selected as 1 of 20 students to receive a scholarship for the 2020-2021 academic year.

Chessboard
Toyota Scholar

1 of 2 students to be receive a scholarship for their involvement in the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.