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<aside> 👋 Hey, I’m Julia! I’m finishing up my 1st year of engineering @UWaterloo and working as an R&D tech at AirBoss. 🧪🔬
8 months ago, I got into mobility tech hardware everywhere from 100-1000 kph, and trying to understand the complex systems of why traffic exists. Now I’m building ideas to reduce travel times globally. 🌍
On this project, I focused on Canada’s road transit systems traffic to improve time & resource efficiency. ⏳
Last year, I started out learning about **all things nano: and applied to nano behaviours to generate energy from plants, pick out impurities in drinking water, and build biosensors for medical devices. I’m interested in high-speed travel, nano biosensors, and sustainable energy production. - June 2024
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A little about the past 2 years and how I got to building maglev motors in November 2023 to May 2024
A little about the past 2 years and how I got to building maglev motors in November 2023 to May 2024
<aside> <img src="https://prod-files-secure.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/adf2b4b6-ce74-4d2e-8033-6258ab7dd895/3e84658e-aa68-49d7-91f8-9d9cb6aaea26/1000_F_536947179_8TFyEQV04BmYEWud21q3Znq4jZBlz9qA-removebg-preview.png" alt="https://prod-files-secure.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/adf2b4b6-ce74-4d2e-8033-6258ab7dd895/3e84658e-aa68-49d7-91f8-9d9cb6aaea26/1000_F_536947179_8TFyEQV04BmYEWud21q3Znq4jZBlz9qA-removebg-preview.png" width="40px" /> Problems I’m working on
<aside> <img src="https://prod-files-secure.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/adf2b4b6-ce74-4d2e-8033-6258ab7dd895/e9934873-f243-4228-a089-956350b69ea9/images-removebg-preview.png" alt="https://prod-files-secure.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/adf2b4b6-ce74-4d2e-8033-6258ab7dd895/e9934873-f243-4228-a089-956350b69ea9/images-removebg-preview.png" width="40px" /> Gaps preventing efficient Maglev & hyperloops
<aside> 🛠️ My work is filling the tech gap
<aside> ⏩ The work in action
8 months ago, I was super into nanomaterials and the only thing I knew about motors was that they made stuff move. I had no idea how to build AC or DC circuits (besides sticking 2 wires to a battery), or how to optimize them by solving for their current and voltages. So, in October 2023 with my very limited 1-week intro to electromagnetics from 3 years ago in Gr. 11, high school I got to work.
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Several weeks + 7hr all-nighter after FINALLY figuring out how to solve my motor’s circuit!!! While studying for final uni exams in my dorm.
Visible levitation achieved! 🛠️
Now, I have a working model showing clear lift and movement.
I am working on getting more movement and control by using a 3-phase AC current instead of just the single phase from my wall.
See the timeline from the start to now to see what I did to get here.
⏩ Seconds before the motor destruction tragedy.
When I finally figured out the circuit calculations and got enough levitation to fit a credit card under my first working motor. I knocked it over, it shorted burning everything that wasn’t insulated and took 1 month to figure out how I did it.
Exciting & terrifying shorts ⚡
In the past 3 weeks, I started learning how to build LIM circuits with big coils and I got some big shorts too. This was the first time I got lift using 4 coils.
The left red coil has slight lift.
Society is changing so quickly our transportation systems can’t keep up, this is especially true in Canada.
With the increase in gas prices and inflation in general, people are shifting away from personal vehicles due to unaffordability. Car registrations grew 21% in Canada from 1985-1997 but road capacity has only increased 7%. So, a lot more people were buying cars with little road expansion to drive on. More recently car sales shot down by 0.3% from 2021-2022 (smallest increase in over 20 years!) so continuing into 2023, more people will need to use public transportation.
Urban sprawl and low-density housing developments have led to longer commute distances that existing transportation infrastructure cannot efficiently handle.
The following table compares current modes of transportation in Canada
