Internship at Commonwealth Fusion Systems 2021
In the spring of 2021, I worked at Commonwealth Fusion Systems on the applications team, supporting the manufacture of mirror coils for plasma confinement in the upcoming Wisconsin High-Field Axi-Symmetric Mirror (WHAM) fusion experiment. While the manufacturing process and magnet I worked on are trade secrets, I also spent some time on a side project for the company: A device to aid in cutting intermediate lengths (50mm to 3m) of High-Temperature Superconducting tape (HTS). It uses a belt and pinion linear actuator to concentrate engineering complexity all within the mobile carriage, necessitating on-board power management and motor driving.