Interview with Jordan McRae

Featured Engineer

Jordan McRae

Jordan McRae - Inventor and President of Octo23 Technologies

How did you get into electronics/ engineering and when did you start?

I tinkered a little when I was much younger, but I didn’t really get started with electrical engineering until I went to university. At MIT I studied Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering but my primary focus was in Robotics and Controls. At first, I started out on the software side, developing the control and planning algorithms for distributed systems of rovers, blimps, and unmanned air vehicles (UAVs). Then, as I began working on my own robotic platforms it became more and more critical for me to strengthen my background in electronics and microcontroller circuitry.

What are your favorite hardware tools that you use?

Most of the tools I use are pretty standard, but one item I’m extremely happy to have on my shelf is my Picoscope PC Oscilloscope. These devices are an excellent alternative to the bulky and expensive lab oscilloscopes. Also, since many of the projects we work on bring us to different places all over the world, a PC Oscilloscope is a handy tool you can just throw into your field bag.

What are your favorite software tools that you use?

For mathematical modeling and analysis I use Matlab and Octave. I’m a big fan of Open Source hardware/software development so for circuit design I use Cadsoft’s EAGLE software, which seems to be the defacto software for the open hardware community. Likewise, for high level C++ or Java programming I use Netbeans.

What is the hardest/trickiest bug you have ever fixed?

While working at Lockheed Space Systems we had a huge bug working on the Guidance, Navigation, and Controls system for a robotic space platform. We were scheduled to have a big presentation within a few days, so I ended up having to “go to the mattresses;” staying in a hotel closer to my office to reduce my commute time and pulling all nighters in lab. In the end, the bug was caused by rounding a control constant to only 6 decimal places, instead of the 12 decimal places that were required to fix the bug.

What is on your bookshelf?

A book I keep in arms reach at all times is “Practical Electronics for Inventors” by Paul Scherz. A few other favorites are:
“Linear Electric Actuators and Generators,” by Boldea and Nasar “Vibration and Waves,” French.
“Probabilistic Robotics,” Thrun, Burgard, Fox.
“Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach,” Russell and Norvig
“Dynamics of Marine Ecosystems,” Mann and Lazier
“Energy: It’s use and the Environment,” Hinrichs and Kleinbach.
“The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus,” Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein.

Do you have any tricks up your sleeve?

Not that I know of, most of my methods seem to be fairly old school; using console outputs and oscilloscopes versus some of the more sophisticated emulator/debugging devices that are on the market now.

What has been your favorite project?

Tough question! I’ve worked on a lot of a lot of fun projects, each of which have a lot of great moments associated with them. The Windbelt project, a non-turbine wind energy generator, gets a high score since it enabled us to travel and work with communities all around the world; Guatemala, Hong Kong, Haiti, Ghana, and Bhutan.

B-Squares, is also a current favorite for a few reasons. For one, it’s the first time we’ve tried the approach of launching a project through crowd source funding. Rather than searching for angel or VC investment, we were extremely successful through a crowd source funding platform called Kickstarter, raising enough financing to tool up for mass production. Second, it’s the first time we’ve decided to actually proceed with the mass production and distribution of a system ourselves rather than licensing the technology to an industry partner.

Also, anything that serves as an excuse for me to jump in the water and do some diving is always high up on my preference list. Within robotics, my focus has narrowed more and more to underwater robotics and innovating technologies that will enable improved ocean conservation. To that end, I’m currently working on a new type of underwater communications system for snorkelers and divers.

Can you tell us more about the B Squares project?

B-Squares is a modular electronics system with an emphasis on energy harvesting and energy storage. Each square has magnetic contacts on each corner which allow them to easily snap together without wires or soldering. These magnetic contacts are also used to transmit electric signals between the Squares. Due to the multiple magnetic contacts on each Square, the overall circuit of the array can be changed simply by rotating one of the Squares. For example, the Solar-Square and/or Battery-Square can be switched to a series or parallel connection by a simple 90 rotation of one square with respect to the other. To begin with, we have started with six basic Squares: the Solar-Square, Battery-Square, Arduino-Square, Proto-Square, LED-Square, and Dock-Square. One of the best, and most flattering, descriptions of the B-Squares system has been: “It’s like electronic LEGOs.” Our goal is to provide a system not only for hobbyists and students, but something that can also present the elegance of modular electronics in everyday applications.

The B-Squares project is a collaboration between my firm Octo23 Technologies and Haddock Invention, led by my colleague Shawn Frayne. The idea came to us as we were brainstorming on how to make a better solar charger for emerging markets. Rather than designing a system that required a large upfront payment, we began exploring a modular solar charging system that would allow users to purchase the system piecewise, expanding their energy harvesting and storage capacity gradually. The result of this design experiment was the magnetic contacts system which is at the core of the B-Squares technology.

You can find out more about it through this short demo video.

Can you tell us a little bit about the Windbelt as well?

The Windbelt is a non-turbine wind energy generator which uses a natural fluid dynamics phenomenon, aeroelastic flutter, to generate electricity from air flow. The inspiration for the Windbelt is the very famous physics case study of the Tacoma Narrows bridge destruction. Traditionally, the Tacoma Narrows bridge was thought to have undergone strong oscillations due to a resonant effect with a high wind flow. However, it’s now well accepted that in fact this destructive energy was the result of aeroelastic flutter. While Civil and Aerospace Engineers put great effort into designing against aeroelastic flutter, we have designed the Windbelt to promote this phenomenon allowing us to harvest the energy that results from the self-exciting oscillations of an elastic membrane.

You can find more information here.

What challenges do you foresee in our industry?

More than just our industry, but our world as a whole I see the biggest challenges coming from three major areas; energy, clean drinking water, and the protection of our ecosystems. Finding the solution to these challenges are going to require changes in how we think about our economic systems, how we govern our communities, and how we develop technology. Something that’s becoming more and more interesting to me is identifying the line between what’s considered “appropriate” or “sustainable” and what’s “high-tech.” At first glance it seems a little silly to talk about robotics or other “high-tech” systems in the context of sustainable development in a place like Africa. Why? Things that were considered “high-tech” a few years ago are now fairly commonplace all over the world. Example: The Light Emitting Diode (LED). Even within the last 10 years, we’ve seen some amazing advancements in the efficiency and cost reduction of LED systems. Now LEDs can be found in almost every developing country; used in solar powered lanterns or UV disinfection systems. Globalization, in some ways, has removed this old mantra that for something to be “appropriate” or “sustainable” it needs to be made out of wood and PVC and harvested locally. One of the challenges our industry is facing is how we redefine this idea of sustainable technology development with all of the economic, social, and environments constraints present in the global world we live in.