Clayton Rasch.

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING · ROSE-HULMAN

Clayton Rasch.
Mechanical engineering student.

I like airplanes, robots, and figuring out why something isn't working. I'm studying mechanical engineering at Rose-Hulman, and these are some of the things I've worked on.

Explore my projects
PROJECTS & EXPERIENCEclayton.engineer

Projects & experience

Things I've built, fixed, and helped run.

01 / ROBOTICS

Thornbots

Mechanical team · Rose-Hulman · September 2026–present

I'm part of the mechanical team on Thornbots. I help troubleshoot drivetrain problems, including gears skipping, and contribute to mechanical design and prototyping.

It's hands-on work with a team: figuring out what isn't behaving as expected, discussing changes, and working through the next iteration.

What I'm working on
  • Diagnosing mechanical drivetrain issues during team builds.
  • Contributing to design changes and prototypes.
  • Working toward machine-shop qualifications for fabrication and assembly.

I like seeing how a design holds up once it's part of a real mechanism, not just a CAD model.

Mechanical designDrivetrainsPrototyping
02 / THEATRE

Theatre tech & stage management

Carolina Friends School · 2025–2026

I've worked on theatre crews as both a leader and a team member. As a stage manager, I coordinated rehearsals, schedules, cues, and the people needed to keep a production running.

During High School Musical, I dealt with a major microphone problem mid-performance while still calling cues. I coordinated with the assistant stage managers and crew to restore audio and keep the show moving.

Two shows, different problems

High School Musical · March 2026

I led rehearsals and coordinated the cast, crew, director, and production logistics through show week. During the microphone issue, that meant keeping track of the show while the team worked on the fault.

Bowling for Beginners · October 2025

I helped move the full technical production into an unfamiliar venue, adapting cues and workflows to a different stage and setup. When a cast member was unexpectedly absent during the NCTC-adjudicated performance, I helped adapt the production in real time.

Theatre taught me to communicate clearly when something goes wrong and to rely on the people around me, whether I'm leading or helping carry out the work.

Stage managementTechnical troubleshootingCrew coordination
03 / HARDWARE

Laptop refurbishment

Volunteer · Kramden Institute · November 2024–December 2025

At Kramden, I refurbished roughly 400 laptops for under-resourced schools. I diagnosed and repaired hardware problems across different devices, learning to recognize recurring faults without assuming every laptop had the same issue.

I also helped about 12 rotating volunteers with troubleshooting and repairs, sharing approaches to the problems we saw most often.

Repairing, not just replacing

A lot of this work was about narrowing down a fault, understanding how the hardware fit together, and deciding what needed attention. Working across many devices gave me practice being methodical rather than jumping to the first explanation.

Helping other volunteers was part of the work, too. A repair was more useful when someone else could understand the diagnosis and use that approach on the next machine.

~400 laptopsHardware diagnosisVolunteer support
04 / SOFTWARE

Tools for school communication

Teacher's assistant · Carolina Friends School · 2025–2026

I used Python and Google Docs to automate daily upper-school announcements, making the school-wide messages more consistent.

I also built a Tkinter interface for an LLM-assisted college newsletter. It pulled current college news and balanced different Claude models against token cost.

Two practical tools

Daily announcements

A Python workflow for a repeated school task, using Google Docs as part of the process.

College newsletter

A desktop interface for gathering college news and preparing a newsletter for prospective college students. Alongside building the interface, I worked with the tradeoff between model choice and running cost.

PythonGoogle DocsTkinter

ABOUT ME

Outside the project list

I'm studying mechanical engineering at Rose-Hulman, with an expected graduation in 2030. My interests include aerospace, robotics, CAD, and 3D printing. I work with SolidWorks and Onshape, and I also write Python and JavaScript.

I like work where I can move between a model, a physical part, and a test, and learn something from the differences between them.

I'm looking for a mechanical engineering internship for summer 2027.

CONTACT

Get in touch

Have a question about a project, or want to talk about an internship? Email me.

clayton@raschnet.com