about nash elder

Nash Elder is an ambitious engineer looking to make an impact. Through experiences in academic, startup, and hands-on environments, Nash leverages various schools of thought to solve a problem.

Graduating with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (2021), the university’s “Learn by Doing” motto had him building out projects in the machine shops, touring automated factories across China, and incubating a startup, all the while teaching him the fundamental principles of mechanical engineering. One day, he approached his Mechanical Vibrations professor with an observation about the strikingly similar relationship between electrical capacitors and mechanical springs. His professor remarked that these kinds of curious questions were fit for graduate school. It wasn’t until then he ever really considered any higher education.

Nash continued his education at Boston University graduating with an M.S. in Robotics and Autonomous Systems (2023). Here he found his place in the Material Robotics Lab where he worked for 1.5 years under an ambitious professor. In a fast-paced environment where significant progress was expected weekly, Nash, led development of a novel position-tracking sensor embedded in a soft-rigid hybrid continuum robot. The robot successfully demonstrated added dexterity with a grasping end-effector, biocompatibility through material selection, and safety with the use of soft materials and low-voltage sensing. The sensor utilized an ionic resistive sensing mode paired with an online simulation modeling the soft structure using robot joint kinematics and predicted the shape of the robot and the tip position with acceptably low error. Constantly automating tests in Python, processing data in Matlab, designing test fixtures for 3D print, fabricating the actuator-sensor modules, designing circuits with actuators, sensors, and data acquisition devices, were all part of the day-to-day at the lab. The work, accumulated in his thesis currently under embargo, is set to be published in a scientific journal later this year.