Charles Smith

Portfolio: Professional Experience
Engineering + Chocolateering

Alpha Innotech

During my three and a half years at Alpha Innotech, I developed high-end scientific and biomedical research platforms using super-sensitive digital cameras, precision optical components, light-proofing, and micron-scale positioning mechanisms. My duties included:

• Industrial Designer Liaison
• Project management
• Supervision - drafters, machinist, optical consultant
• New product specifications
• Mechanical design & production hand offs
• Installation & Maintaince of ProE, Intralink PDM system
• Redesign of document release process to win TUV compliance, creation of electronic document vault that has drastically lowered purchasing department’s demands and drafter’s time.

But one of the things I'm most pleased with is my patent pending.

		[ Picture Pending ]
This rendering was given to me as a starting point for Alpha's flagship product.	Here are the parts I designed.	Here is the final production housing.	Here is a large old slide holder and its new replacement - big $ savings with my integrated living hinge/slide holder clip.

Brothers Digital Web Development

Founded during the infancy of the dot com boom with my roommate (of course), our company has done graphic design, e-commerce implementations and even online engineering application development. Our most compelling accomplishment is a custom lighting analysis application for Hydrofarm.

Hydrofarm is one of the world’s largest suppliers of greenhouse lighting products. I developed that has cut their development time on large scale light arrangements by more than 80%!

The final software utilizes an extensive library of Hydrofarm’s products, allows for configuration of the greenhouse size & material, optimizes positioning and rotation of lights based on up to five different criteria, and produces reports that can range from simple layouts and light levels to statistical presentations of light distribution and pseudo-color to aide in quick evaluation.

Screen shot of LightSmith(tm) Interface	LightSmith(tm) Report

Varatouch

As Director of Mechanical Engineering at Varatouch, I conducted the most rigorous qualification of product in the company’s history: once for a joystick and once for a navigation disk.

I wanted to know our devices could operate in the arctic, the Sahara, and the Amazon. I wrote test protocols, procured testing equipment, qualified external testing vendors, supervised internal testing and compiled a formal report.

While there, I also developed an infinitely variable joystick assembly that could scale up and down and propagate complex changes from the joystick through the sensor, PCB, and fixturing components automatically.