Projects — Ben Pratt

Engineering · TPED 2026

Ride Design Vehicle

Fully inverted dark ride prototype where the vehicle hangs beneath the track, coordinated by a WiFi-based MQTT system across vehicles, track hardware, and a central server.

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Electrical systems architecture for a fully inverted dark ride prototype (vehicle hangs beneath the track) built for the UF Theme Park Engineering & Design (TPED) club.
Developed a WiFi-based communication layer using Mosquitto MQTT to coordinate ride vehicles, track systems, and the central server.
Implemented servo-driven switch tracks and turntables, motorized drop-track actuation, and IR beam-break sensors for sequencing and trigger detection.
Supported both manual and autonomous subsystem control modes across the integrated ride platform.

UF Theme Park Engineering

Robotics · UF 2025

Learning-Based Robotic Manipulation

Modular autonomous agent pipeline featuring LLM-based planning and visuomotor policies for physical object manipulation.

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Developed a modular autonomous agent pipeline with an LLM planning node to parse natural language into structured goals.
Implemented a visuomotor policy for physical execution using imitation learning.
Built on ROS2-based infrastructure for robust communication between planning and execution nodes.
Executed full experimental cycle: teleoperation data collection, policy training, and hardware deployment.

Robotics · 2025–2026

Animatronic Gator Head

Full-stack animatronic control pipeline for a multi-DOF gator head — servos, digital twin, and audio-reactive jaw.

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Coordinated servo control (jaw, eyes, brows) via Arduino / PCA9685 for expressive animatronic performance.
Built a Unity digital twin to prototype motion sequences and export CSV-driven animation curves for sim-to-real deployment.
Integrated audio-reactive jaw motion using FFT-based amplitude mapping.
Engineered cross-platform comms between Unity, Python, and embedded controllers for modular show-control integration.

UF Theme Park Engineering

Research · IHMC 2025

Diffusion Policy Training

End-to-end teleoperation-to-autonomy pipeline for the Unitree H1-2 humanoid robot using Lerobot's diffusion policy.

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Collected training data via VR teleoperation and trained autonomous behaviors with Lerobot's diffusion policy framework.
Integrated Python Lerobot code with custom Java control systems through ROS2 for seamless cross-language communication.
Implemented control interfaces for Psyonic Ability Hands enabling dexterous manipulation.

Research · IHMC 2024

Motion Capture System

Java pipeline mapping full-body pose from an 8-camera Blackfly MoCap rig to three different robot platforms.

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Parsed pose data from 8 Blackfly cameras and converted it into control signals for Psyonic Ability Hands, Franka Arms, and IHMC's Nadia humanoid.
Extended system to drive IHMC's Nadia full humanoid robot in collaboration with a senior researcher.

Research · IHMC 2023

VR Robot Controls

Custom VR interaction systems for controlling IHMC's humanoid robots — camera bounding boxes, radial menus, arm/hand control.

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Built a movable camera bounding box for Blackfly projections so operators can reframe views without leaving VR.
Designed a radial menu triggered by controller proximity to robot hands — eliminates need to exit VR for pose changes.
Extended locomotion controls for remote teleoperation of IHMC's humanoid robot platform.

Software Engineering · UF

Jar of Joy

Full-stack web app with user authentication and dynamic database, built with React, Python, and MySQL.

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Team of 4 — React/JS/CSS frontend, Python + MySQL backend.
Implemented user authentication and a dynamic, per-user database.

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Data Structures · UF

Movie Graph Visualizer

BFS vs Dijkstra visualizer over a 45,000-movie/actor dataset, built in HTML + JavaScript.

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Team of 3 — implemented both BFS and Dijkstra to find connections between any two movies.
Interactive website lets users visualize all connections from a single movie or find shortest paths between two.
Dataset: 45,000+ movies and actors.

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Game Dev · UF Digital Arts

2D Unity Game — Robot Ruckus

Fully playable game built in Unity with C# — custom animations, physics, and polished UI/UX.

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Implemented core gameplay systems in C# with structured OOP logic and optimized performance.
Created all character and environment animations from scratch and wired them into Unity's animation state machine.
Designed controls, feedback systems, and UI for smooth, intuitive gameplay.

Play Game

Game Dev · FBLA 2022

Blob Town

Python Pygame platformer with a custom level editor. 🏆 1st place — FBLA Regionals Computer Game & Simulation Programming.

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Built a full platformer in Python + Pygame using open-source graphics.
Shipped a custom level editor so players can build and save their own levels.
1st place at FBLA regional competition, Computer Game & Simulation Programming (2022).

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Robotics · Science Fair 2021–2022

AI 3D Printer Robot

Converted a 3D printer into a pick-and-place arm using Python computer vision to detect and grab colored targets.

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Mounted a top-down camera and used Python computer vision to locate red pom-pom balls in the workspace.
Converted gantry motion to robot arm kinematics, driving the end-effector precisely to detected targets.
Custom gripper attachment for physical object retrieval.

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Robotics · Science Fair 2019–2020

Guess Who Robot

Open-source robotic arm controlled by a Raspberry Pi to play the board game Guess Who using Python.

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Programmed a Raspberry Pi in Python to run game logic for Guess Who.
Arm physically interacts with the game board, flipping character panels in response to game state.

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My Projects