John R. Mitchell IV
About Me
Hello! I’m an electrical engineering student at Georgia Tech. I am interested in RF systems, communication systems, embedded systems, and digital signal processing.
In addition to my classes I am an active member of the Solar Racing team. I am the former lead of the auxiliary systems and telemetry subteam where my contributions included analog and digital circuit design, programming for embedded systems (including ARM and ESP32), PCB layout, and helping bring multiple systems together to function as a whole. In addition to my “home” sub-team, I often assist the other electrical sub-teams with circuit design and PCB layout. My current project is a long desired "sensor suite" which will be a collection of IMUs, brake pressure sensors, temperature, irradiance, and whatever else the team desires spread throughout the car. To facilitate these new sensors, I am designing a new in-car telemetry network that will use CANFD and/or ethernet to handle the much larger bandwidth than our current CAN system can support. I also help the aerobody team with molding and cutting composites (a skill I developed as a sculptor) and the outreach team with designing t-shirts and the vinyl wrap for the car.
I am also currently working on a modular synthesizer as a personal passion project. I have designed an XY wave table digital Voltage Controlled Oscillator. I have also designed and built an analog voltage controlled Low Frequency Oscillator, Voltage Controlled Amplifier, and Voltage Controller Filter using operational transconductance amplifiers. I have a few other modules in the prototype stage, including a 2nd order Mass-Damper-Spring simulation for generating envelopes.
I have been exploring electronics as a hobby long before deciding to study it at school. I have designed and built guitar effects pedals for a few years, which is where I started to learn analog electronics.
Before switching my college major to EE, I was a sculpture major. I used a variety of physical mediums, including metal, wood, clay, foam, and papier-mâché, as well as digital sculpting and art. My main interest while I was an art student was using photogrammetry and 3d printing to bring traditional oil clay sculptures and digital sculpture together. This led to my first research project after switching majors, which was developing an algorithm to apply dithering to improve the surface quality of consumer grade resin 3d printers.