Mitchell Hoopermitch.hooper@gmail.com ● (530) 263-7592

www.linkedin.com/in/mitch-hooperwwu

Ramp USARamp USA is a start-up with the mission to design and build the fastest and lightest electric wheelchair on the market. My role with Ramp is to co-design and prototype the second-generation drive system. Shown is an iteration of the drive system, a custom hub, and a battery tray all which I designed.

FSAE Viking 61During the 2018-2019 school year, I was a suspension engineer on the Western Washington University Formula SAE team. My main task was to improve the uprights, which are outlined later. Also, as a senior member, I assisted both novice and senior members on design and manufacturing projects to help complete the car intime.

FSAE Viking 59During the 2017-2018 school year, I was the suspension lead for the Western Washington University Formula SAE Viking 59 car. This car utilized the same suspension geometry as the previous car, which meant the majority of my small team’s effort went into improving manufacturing methods and iterating on current designs to be able to deliver the best suspension with what we had to work with. At the yearly collegiate event in Lincoln Nebraska, we placed 10th out of 74 other teams.

FSAE Viking 58During the 2016-2017 school year, I had the privilege of working on V58. The car was mostly together as it was a multi-year car, however, there had been very little documentation behind the design choices. As a sophomore, it was a crash course in time management, communication, vehicle dynamics, suspension tuning, and most of all, solving problems without the exact answers. We took the car to Lincoln, Nebraska for the yearly competition and placed 17th out of 75 teams.

Electric Pickup Battery SystemFor my senior capstone project at Western Washington University, I was apart of a three-person team responsible for designing, manufacturing, and testing the battery modules and management system for an electric pickup. Shown is our CAD model and a completed module.

From doing kinematic models to designing suspension parts and working with large assemblies for Formula SAE cars to analyzing parts with Finite Element Analysis, I have become quite adept with CATIA V5 over the past four years. I have carried this knowledge over to other CAD software packages like Inventor or Solidworks.

CATIA V5

Finite Element Analysis For Formula SAE, the entire suspension system was tested to see the deflection and stress in each part. CATIA FEA workbench was used to analyze the parts. From the results, certain parts were improved by making them lighter and/or stronger. Shown is a brake hat (left) for V59 and a front upright (right) for V61.

Viking 61 UprightsFor the 2018-19 FSAE car, I designed the front and rear uprights. They are an iteration on the previous design while using different bearings in the front and a different caliper attachment method in the rear. They were also designed to be easier to manufacture over the previous design.

Optimized Suspension Rockers

For V59, I redesigned the front and rear rockers to be easier to manufacture. I also took this opportunity to remove unnecessary material from the part. This was determined by analyzing the part with CATIA FEA workbench.

Viking 59 SidepodAs the main project for the Introduction to Composites course, my group and I made a side pod for the Formula SAE car. We did the whole process including sanding the tooling, laying up the splash and part. For the actual part, we did a VARTM resin infusion process using carbon fiber with a foam core.

Energy Storage Systems PVC Cutting Jig During my internship at ESS, I designed and printed a jig to reduce the human error and takt time when cutting the copious amounts of PVC pipe required to make the iron flow batteries work.

Brazed Steel Frame Road BikeFor my high school senior project, I built a road bike from scratch. I cut, mitered, and brazed the tubes together as well as assembled the bike from parts I bought or that were donated. I did all the paint preparation and had the frame professionally powdered coated. This was the first time I had ever brazed or done this much on a bike. Thanks to Whit Johnson of Meriwether Cycles who taught me how to miter and braze the frame.

Mini BuggyFor my 8th grade project, I designed and fabricated a Baja SAE style buggy from scratch. I used a Polaris Scrambler ATV as the front and rear suspension with a space frame welded in between. I designed the frame on Google SketchUp which was my first CAD project. This was the first time I had ever welded but quickly grew to love it and have improved upon my skill since then. A local machinist, Michael Larson, taught me how to weld and mentored me through the project.