iRobot 2-in-1 Cleaner

I joined iRobot as a mechanical engineering intern in the Advanced Development department working on the next generation of 2-in-1 cleaning products.

As part of my role, I worked on several early stage prototypes and designed custom testing setups and metrics to evaluate cleaning performance and guide larger system architecture decisions. This involved early stage ideation and rapid prototyping skills to create a subsystem prototype, as well as system integration skills to get it to run on an electromechanical test “sled” that represented the rest of the robot. For each concept that I created, I evaluated its system footprint (space, weight, power) and brainstormed ways test it for representative cleaning conditions, exercising both detailed subsystem and higher level product thinking.

My subsystem explorations also led me to collaborate with an external firm on detailed FEA, testing several geometries of a cleaning subsystem to understand what the cleaning footprint would look like in different conditions. As part of this, I managed the collaboration efforts by setting meetings, schedule, and scope for the firm.

I spent part of my time assisting with design of the next generation vacuum cleaner as well, conducting testing to analyze performance of different blower designs and identify improvements.