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Kieran McCurdy walks onto the UNH Manchester Wildcats floor and instantly commands attention.
In September 2024 he joined the series as the Mechanical Engineering Technology major slated to graduate in 2025, and his story blends hands‑on robotics with sustainable design. I sat down with him in the campus makerspace where he’s building a 3‑D‑printed prosthetic arm that can lift 5 kg while using under 2 watts of power—a figure that rivals commercial models. Because his senior capstone partners with the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, the project isn’t just an academic exercise; it’s slated for real‑world testing on state‑run electric buses (a close call). He told me, “Every bolt I tighten feels like I’m tightening the future of mobility.” Not what we expected. And the Wildcats audience reacted with a standing ovation.
“Every bolt I tighten feels like I’m tightening the future of mobility.”
Project Highlights
The arm’s actuator uses a brushless DC motor rated at 24 V and a custom‑tuned PID controller that keeps jitter under 0.02 seconds—precision that matters when you’re gripping delicate objects. We found the firmware runs on an ESP‑32, a chip I’ve tinkered with on my own side projects, and the open‑source code lives on GitHub for anyone to fork. So the design files are already public, meaning other universities can replicate the build without paying licensing fees—this is impressive for a student‑led effort. The prototype already logged 1,200 cycles in the lab, and Kieran plans to double that before the semester ends. And the team is documenting every test on the UNH engineering blog (https://www.unh.edu/college-engineering).
Key takeaway
- Student‑driven innovation can meet industry‑grade performance.
- Open‑source hardware accelerates adoption across campuses.
- Low‑power actuators are critical for sustainable robotics.
- Collaboration with state agencies bridges classroom and real‑world impact.
For more context on how universities fuel tech pipelines, see Shorting Jim Cramer’s Picks Burned Him $57K – A Cautionary Tale and Household Chores That Count as Exercise – 5 Moves to Burn Calories. Readers interested in the broader implications of student robotics should also check out Ars Technica for industry analysis.
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