Jackson Potter

Lecturer, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science

“We make widgets that help people.

We’ve been interviewing researchers at Tyson to find out if there’s any special equipment that might help them with their research. That’s the main goal, to help facilitate research of people at Tyson by making them something, or finding the physical hardware, software, or products they need.”

Do you have any examples of something you’re making?

”Oh, sure. For Natalie Mueller’s ‘Lost Crops’ project she needs to separate different types of seeds from their chaff. There are some solutions, products that you can buy online that work pretty well, but she studies unique seeds; they are very small relative to the chaff. Currently we're trying to make a winnowing device that works well for the particular seed that she's trying to separate.”

What got you interested in the combination of engineering and ecology research?

”I’ve always been focused on mechanical design and machines. My wife is an ecologist. I’ve found that ecology equipment is a really cool application. It isn’t usually mass produced so you can make custom one-off machines for different needs. The designs almost always involve usability and environmental robustness. It needs to be suitable to different conditions and portable.

They’re also usually somewhat safe to work on. It’s not like, you know, making something that’s going to explode.”

What’s the best part about your standard day of work at Tyson this summer?

“I like doing the work alongside the undergrads, making sketches of different solutions and doing the functional decomposition, helping them along with the process. I don’t always get to do that as an instructor. A lot of time is spent administering the course, but not going through the content yourself. It’s fun that this summer I actually get to do it. That’s probably the best part of my day.”

Jackson leads Team ElectroMech. Learn more about his plans for electro-mechanical design solutions for ecological research here.