Senior Mechanical Design Engineer - HaptX
October 2021 - February 2024
While virtual reality has made great strides in the past few years, the lack of physical feedback prevents a realistic experience. HaptX gloves combine pneumatics, motion sensors, force feedback, and textiles to allow the user to feel tactile feedback when touching objects in VR. As an engineer on the peripheral (glove development) team, my goal was to design and deliver a comfortable haptic glove that allows our users in the medical, energy, and military industries to train in a virtual environment. The tactile panels and force feedback create an immersive experience in VR, allowing the user to feel textures and pick up objects as they would in real life.
———
I joined HaptX as a mechanical design engineer on the peripheral team. My initial responsibilities included:
1) Designing plastic housing, silicone tactile panels, and cut&sewn textile patterns for our G1 gloves.
2) Evaluating comfort and fit across four different glove sizes through human factor testing.
3) Developing integration processes for silicone tactile panels, force feedback system, pneumatics, motion capture sensors, and textiles across multiple subsystems.
My position broadened to system ownership, testing, and manufacturing as our G1 product pushed toward release. The following high-level responsibilities demonstrated my capability and promotion to senior mechanical design engineer:
1) Executing feedback from leadership, investors, and clients through alpha, beta, and production prototypes regarding functionality and aesthetics.
2) Complete ownership in design and manufacturing processes for several systems and communicating directly with local and overseas manufacturers for production.
3) Leading DFMEA and system validation testing across glove and mechatronic teams.
4) Researching and developing new haptic products for automotive, accessibility, and military applications.
Credited Patents: WO2023215485A1 and WO2024030656A3
Link to released product: HaptX Gloves - G1
# product design, system testing, manufacturing, plastics, silicones
