Mechanical engineer / Schenectady, New York
Mert Türeli

I design, build, and test hardware end to end, from CAD and drawings through electronics and firmware to the test rig that proves it works.

See the work Full portfolio
CHARGER / rendered from the flight model, thirty internal components at their true stations
Mert Türeli
Portrait / 2026
Mert Türeli

I grew up in Izmir and came to New York for the degree. Outside of engineering I fly, make short films, shoot photography, cook, and travel as much as I can get away with.

I am a mechanical engineer who does not stop at the mechanical part. Most of my work has the same shape: something needs to exist, nobody has built it yet, and the fastest way to find out if it works is to design it, wire it, write the firmware, and then build the rig that measures it.

Ranked, strongest first. Four of them have a full case study in the engineering portfolio.

Thermal / Instrumentation Benchtop thermal test rig SunThru, 2026 / Design, electronics, firmware, safety systems

The company needed to rank glazing samples by insulating performance and had no way to measure it. I designed and built the whole bench: the insulated test chamber, the sensor stack, the electronics, the firmware, and the safety system that lets it run unattended overnight.

The measurement approach was the interesting decision. Rather than inferring performance from heater power, the rig reads actual heat flow through the sample with a calibrated sensor, and it will not accept a result until the readings have held steady for a full hour. The safety design is layered and redundant, because a heater running all night with nobody watching is a real hazard and not a theoretical one.

It was built for roughly a quarter of what a comparable commercial unit was quoted at, and the same electronics and firmware scale to a larger chamber for full size windows.

Measurement
Renders withheld / SunThru proprietary hardware
Full 84 part assembly. Net, ramps, indexer, flywheel thrower
Mechanism / Electronics / Firmware Robo-Catcher Senior capstone, 2025 / Twelve person team

An automatic softball catching and return machine. I co-led the feeding subsystem and then took over all the electronics and firmware for the entire robot when the project needed someone to own it. That meant the flywheel drive, the stepper based feed indexing, the limit switch and interlock logic, wireless start and stop, and hardware emergency cutoffs wired independently of the microcontroller.

It hit one hundred percent feed indexing reliability on competition day, came in under budget, and fits in a car trunk. The reliability number came from testing the indexing path to failure ahead of time and fixing what jammed, not from luck on the day.

Case study
Airframe / Payload Deployable sensor payload Union College Rocket Team, 2026 / Captain and chief engineer / First place

The competition entry that won its event at Battle of the Rockets 2026. I led the design and manufacture of the airframe and the deployable payload, and ran the team through design review, build, and launch day recovery.

The win is published by both Union College and the competition organizer.

Design for manufacture Aerogel three-point bend jig SunThru, 2026 / Solo design

Aerogel is too fragile for off the shelf flexural test fixtures, so I designed one. It is fully 3D printable, built from interlocking parts on a shared coordinate system, and sized for the lab's samples with gentle repeatable clamping. It is in use for flexural characterization.

A small, clean example of design for manufacture, and of solving a problem by making the tool rather than buying it.

Case study
Build
Renders withheld / SunThru proprietary hardware
Rudder sweep, then each toe brake. Motion solved from the real pivot geometry
Mechanism / Firmware Flight sim rudder pedals Personal project, 2026 / Solo

A three axis fighter style rudder and toe brake set, designed in CAD and 3D printed, using contactless magnetic sensing so there is nothing to wear out. I wrote the USB HID firmware myself, so it is plug and play in any simulator with no drivers, custom calibration, and its own deadzone logic.

A solo project that goes all the way from mechanism design to firmware, and it connects to the flying.

Case study
Thermal / Control electronics Therma-Shift coaster Personal project, 2026 / Solo

A solid state coaster that actively heats or cools any mug or glass, built for a seed competition. Closed loop temperature control with thermal runaway cutoffs, in an aluminum topped form factor designed to work with drinkware people already own rather than a proprietary cup.

I bench validated the thermal core before integrating the control electronics, which is the part most projects skip.

Case study
CAD views of the four subsystems, exported from the assembly
Engineering intern SunThru Schenectady, NY / June 2026 to present

SunThru is a Union College spin-out developing silica aerogel inserts that give double pane windows triple pane performance. I work on the prototype side and the equipment side.

On the product: building and testing the company's first full in-house prototype units, and leading the validation work on thermal performance and optical clarity. I produce the toleranced drawings that go out to machine shops for quoting, and I manage component sourcing when lead times are tight.

On the equipment: supporting bring-up of a PLC automation system for production equipment, which means ladder logic, panel wiring, instrumentation, and running structured test procedures on live hardware.

I also led sourcing for a replacement production blower on a one week deadline, which involved specifying the requirement, working the manufacturer's rep, catching a power spec mismatch against the site's actual supply, and raising material compatibility questions before anyone ordered anything.

Founder and president Union College Rocket Team Schenectady, NY / August 2023 to June 2026

Started the team from nothing and built it to competition standard. Led thirteen members as captain, trained new members through build labs, and owned safety compliance for high power launches. Grew the team budget by seven hundred percent by writing funding proposals, which is what made a competitive airframe possible at all.

The team won first place at Battle of the Rockets 2026 in the Deployable Sensor Payload event, and was chartered as an official section of the National Association of Rocketry.

Founder ModuFly Schenectady, NY / September 2024 to January 2026

Co-founded a startup around a modular interlocking rocket system for STEM education. Raised $70,000 in seed funding, starting with a $10,000 prize at the SparkLabs competition and then a further $60,000 from private investors. Led R&D and production, and ran hands-on rocketry workshops teaching design and troubleshooting to more than twenty high school students.

Design engineer and materials intern TASECS Ankara, Turkey / Summer 2024

Aerospace thermal management. Designed high efficiency HVAC valve components, ran material stress and fatigue analysis supporting two national fighter and jet trainer programs, and selected aerospace grade materials for printed prototypes, including cooling upgrades for high ambient temperature operation.

Design and CAD
SolidWorks / expert Macro and API automation GD&T to ASME Y14.5 Tolerance stack-up Design for manufacture Design for assembly Shop drawings for quoting AutoCAD CATIA Revit
Controls and automation
PLC ladder logic Control panel wiring Hardware termination 4-20 mA instrumentation Pressure transducers Thermocouples PID control I/O documentation Fault troubleshooting
Electronics and firmware
C++ ESP32 Teensy Embedded data acquisition Closed loop control firmware USB HID Hall effect sensors Thermistors Digital temperature sensors Heat flux sensors
Analysis
FEA CFD MATLAB Heat transfer Thermal analysis HVAC load calculation Stress analysis Fatigue analysis
Fabrication
3D printing / FDM 3D printing / SLA Laser cutting Milling Lathe Rapid prototyping Bench assembly Calibration
Software
Python JavaScript HTML CSS

This site's predecessor was hand built with no framework.

Languages
Turkish / native English / professional German / intermediate Spanish / beginner
Image to come / full bleed
Beyond engineering / 005 Beyond engineering
Piloting

Licensed ultralight pilot, certified through the Turkish civil aviation authority. The rudder pedals came out of the same interest.

Filmmaking

Three short films screened at the Robert College Film Festival in 2022, made while in high school in Istanbul. One of them, a solo project, was nominated in three technical categories: cinematography, editing, and sound design. Entirely self taught.

Photography

An ongoing thing rather than a project.

Cooking

I cook most days, mostly the food I grew up with in Izmir.

Travelling

I grew up in Izmir, moved to New York for the degree, and travel whenever there is room to. The camping and the vlogging fit in here.

01

First place, Battle of the Rockets 2026, Deployable Sensor Payload, as captain and chief engineer

02

Founded the Union College Rocket Team and grew its budget by seven hundred percent

03

Raised $70,000 in seed funding for ModuFly, a $10,000 SparkLabs competition prize plus $60,000 from private investors

04

Three film nominations at the Robert College Film Festival 2022 for a single solo short

Contact Get in touch

Open to engineering roles in design, test, manufacturing and controls. The full write-ups, drawings and numbers are in the portfolio.

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