Andersonville, Tennessee

Owen Tharp

I build things that have to hold themselves up — control systems, competition robots, and machines that go from a CAD model to a welded, wired, working assembly.

tharp.owen001@gmail.com github.com/GrumpyBud Webb School of Knoxville · Class of 2028

See the work Download résumé

Furuta pendulum · live SWING-UP

Drag the pendulum to disturb it — the controller catches it

Loop: 200Hz
Arm θ: 0.0°
Error α: 0.00°
Torque: 0mN·m

4.58

Weighted GPA

4.00 unweighted

ACT composite

AP CSA (5), World History (5)

200Hz

Embedded loop

Furuta pendulum controller

±0.05m

Pose accuracy

≈0.1 rad heading, in match

99.25%

Validation accuracy

Breast-cancer image classifier

22/25

Autonomous routines scored

In competition matches

Profile

Controls and mechanical design, taken all the way to hardware.

I'm Owen Tharp, a junior at Webb School of Knoxville, and I spend most of my time on the part of engineering where the model meets the metal. I am Controls/Systems Director for FRC Team 1466, where I lead the autonomous stack; over summer 2026 I was a CAD engineering intern at Formall Inc., taking an automated plug-assist platform from an assigned end goal to a released 70-sheet drawing package.

My favorite projects are the ones that force the whole loop closed. The Furuta pendulum above is the clearest example: I derived the dynamic model from CAD mass properties and test logs, tuned the LQR gains against hardware data, wrote the 200 Hz embedded controller, and then spent the real time debugging it on the bench until it actually stood up.

I also like teaching it. I run a five-student programming group on 1466 with eight technical decks I wrote myself, mentored a 15-student cohort at Cisco Hack Camp, and have taught roughly forty lower-school students at Camp Webb.

Based in: Andersonville, TN
Graduating: May 2028
Focus: Controls · CAD · Embedded

01 — Experience

Where I have shipped real hardware and real code.

From an approved production platform at a thermoforming manufacturer to four seasons owning a competition robot's autonomous stack.

June — August 2026

CAD Engineering Intern

Formall Inc. / Clinton, TN

Designed an automated twin-sheet plug-assist platform in SolidWorks that carries a 12 ft by 9 ft plastic sheet across an 8 ft bed in 5 seconds each direction.
Replaced a vertical cylinder with a scissor lift after its 22 in stroke exceeded the 14 in height envelope, winning approval from all 3 engineers on the CAD team.
Sized an 8 ft rail-guided base and 10:1 rack-and-pinion drive from calculated mechanism loads, gear geometry, and cylinder travel.
Produced a 70-sheet drawing package covering 65 parts — 95% laser-cut sheet and tube, 5% CNC, nearly all welded.
Cut initial drawing setup from 2–4 hours to 5–10 minutes across 3 verified projects with SolidWorks macros for drawing creation, stock sizing, and E3 callouts, correcting output by hand.
Assembled and calibrated a Modix BIG-60 large-format printer over 40 hours, then validated it with production test prints.

Automated twin-sheet plug-assist platform — Plug-assist platform

Modix BIG-60 large-format 3D printer build — Modix BIG-60 commissioning

SolidWorksWeldments Production drawingsPneumatics VBA macrosLarge-format FDM

2022 — Present

Controls/Systems Director

FRC Team 1466 / Webb School of Knoxville

Led the autonomous stack in WPILib Java with Choreo trajectories, AprilTag localization, and command-based sequencing.
Scored the autonomous routine in 22 of 25 competition matches while holding pose estimates within 0.05 m and 0.1 rad.
Built a finite-state coordination layer shared by autonomous and driver-controlled routines.
Taught a 5-student programming group using 8 original technical decks and hands-on debugging; also design mechanisms in Onshape, create CAM in Fusion 360, and manufacture CNC parts.
Contributed to teams recognized with the 2025 FIRST Engineering Inspiration Award and 2026 Judges Award; qualified for the FRC World Championship and competed alongside teams from 35+ countries.

FRC Team 1466 competition robot — Team 1466 robot

Team 1466 with their award at the Magnolia Regional — Magnolia Regional

WPILibJavaChoreo AprilTagPose estimation Command-basedOnshape

Fall 2022 — 2024

Co-Captain

FTC Team 9934

Co-led a 15+ member team to win the 2024 Tennessee FTC State Championship.
Wrote autonomous and teleoperated control code and coordinated work across CAD, programming, testing, and match strategy.

JavaAutonomous Team leadershipMatch strategy

02 — Independent projects

Things I built because I wanted to know if I could.

Each of these went from a blank CAD document or empty repository to working hardware I could put in someone's hands.

2026 · Flagship

Rotary inverted pendulum

Furuta Pendulum

Teensy 4.1 · ODrive S1 · magnetic encoders · aluminum extrusion

Achieved autonomous swing-up and sustained upright balance with a model-based LQR controller at 200 Hz.
Derived the dynamic model from CAD mass properties and test logs, then tuned LQR gains against hardware data.
Designed, fabricated, and wired the mechanism around a Teensy 4.1, ODrive S1, encoders, and an aluminum frame.
Built a browser interface over UART for guarded tuning, run control, telemetry, and CSV export.

Arm, magnetic encoder and motor mount on the pendulum rig — The rig

Browser tuning and telemetry interface running the guarded swing-up — Tuning interface

Repository The simulation at the top of this page runs the same control law

C++LQRTeensy 4.1 ODriveEnergy shaping System IDWebSockets

2025 & 2026 · Top project The Cisco Offensive Summit 2022 ESP32 badge that runs Reflex Console

Cisco Hack Camp · Knoxville, TN

Reflex Console & Morse Translator

Student mentor · 2025 – 2026 · ESP32 / C++

Named top project in both 2025 and 2026, returning the second year as a mentor to a 15-student cohort.
Built Reflex Console on a Cisco Offensive Summit 2022 ESP32 badge with five on-device tests, BLE session transfer, and a browser history dashboard.
Built a bidirectional Morse code translator in C++ with visual, keyboard, and tap input modes over WebSockets.

Reflex Console test menu on the badge's TFT display — On-device tests

Reflex Console browser dashboard showing saved history and trends — Browser dashboard

ESP32 bidirectional Morse code translator — Morse translator, 2025

ESP32C++BLE WebSocketsMentoring

Summer 2025 Training and validation loss and accuracy curves comparing the CNN and ResNet18

Harvard AI Bootcamp

Breast-Cancer Image Classifiers

PyTorch · CNN vs. ResNet18 vs. Vision Transformer

Reached 99.25% validation accuracy comparing a custom CNN, ResNet18 transfer learning, and a ViT in PyTorch.
Graphed training and validation curves to compare convergence and diagnose overfitting across the three architectures.

PyTorchTransfer learning ViTAugmentation

03 — Technical skills

The toolset, and where each piece actually got used.

Tap or hover any item to see the projects it came from.

A CAD & Manufacturing

SolidWorks Weldments Production drawings SolidWorks macros Onshape Fusion 360 CAM Laser-cut & welded design CNC workflows FDM 3D printing

Tap any skill to trace it back to a project.

B Programming & Controls

Java Python C / C++ TypeScript React WPILib LQR control PID / PIDF AprilTag localization PyTorch

Tap any skill to trace it back to a project.

C Hardware & Embedded

Teensy 4.1 ESP32 Raspberry Pi ODrive S1 Magnetic encoders UART protocols Bluetooth Low Energy Pneumatics

Tap any skill to trace it back to a project.

04 — Education

Webb School of Knoxville

Academic record

Knoxville, TN · Expected graduation May 2028

Weighted GPA: 4.58
Unweighted GPA: 4.00
ACT composite: 34
AP Computer Science A: 5
AP World History: Modern: 5

Advanced coursework

Mathematics, science, and engineering electives

AP Calculus BC AP Chemistry AP Physics 1 AP Computer Science A Honors Quantum Computing Honors Drone Technology & Aviation

Programs: Harvard AI Bootcamp, Summer 2025
ACE CNC Camp, Fall 2025

05 — Honors & outreach

Recognition, and passing it along.

College Board National Recognition Program

School Recognition Award, 2026

Science Olympiad

1st place, Division C Competitive CAD · 3rd place, Division C Windmill

TMTA Mathematics Competition

3rd place in Precalculus and in Algebra II

FIRST Robotics recognition

2025 Engineering Inspiration Award · 2026 Judges Award · World Championship qualifier

Camp Webb STEM instruction

Taught approximately 40 lower-school students

Community STEM volunteering

Pond Gap Elementary and Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley

FRC 1466 programming instruction

Five-student group taught through 8 original technical decks

Cisco Hack Camp mentoring

Troubleshooting support across a 15-student cohort, 2026

06 — Contact

Let's build something that stands up.

If you want to talk controls, robotics, or mechanical design — or just want to know how the pendulum at the top of this page works — email is the fastest way to reach me.

tharp.owen001@gmail.com GitHub