Mark Smart

Cell: (217) 819-2271
mark@marksmart.net
http://www.marksmart.net

Work Experience

2021-2025 Staff Engineer/Technician, CU Aerospace
2006-2021 Electronic Technician/Engineer, Electronics Services Shop at the University of Illinois, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • Designed PCBs for monitoring and safety interrupt for the experimental solar panels on the roof of the ECEB (images)
  • Designed 8-layer PCB for LittleBeats project (images)
  • Designed, constructed and wrote C firmware for elevator remote control system for handicapped students (relay board) (remote control)
  • Designed, fabricated, and assembled button delay time boards for automatic handicapped doors on campus (images)
  • Redid layout of Tux Controller boards for ECE391 (images)
  • Designed, fabricated, and assembled numerous other PCBs (examples)
  • Advised students on electronic design, PCB design, soldering techniques, and mechanical construction of class and research projects
  • Fabricated thousands of PCBs for student and research projects using milling machines ( LPKF 93S, LPKF S63, LPKF ProtoLaser S, T-Tech QuickCircuit 5000), having email conversations with dozens of students simultaneously and organizing messages and files
  • Designed and maintained shop web site with pages instructing students and researchers on PCB design requirements and file submission procedures
  • Created web site instructing other staff members on operation of PCB milling machines
  • Trained students and student employees to solder, assemble, and test hardware
  • Performed through-hole and surface mount rework on hundreds of PCBs with pin spacings as small as 0.5 mm
  • Organized parts, created labels for cabinets, drawers, shelves, etc., and maintained inventory spreadsheet
  • Constructed cable assemblies for various projects including magnetic-material-free cables for MRI research in Department of Nuclear Engineering
  • Repaired and maintained robot cars for ECE110 freshman introductory electrical engineering lab (videos)
  • Co-designed control system to make synthesizer-type sounds with Tesla coils and generated control signal tracks (video)
  • Composed music for ECE110 intro video
  • Tested and calibrated oscilloscopes, multimeters, function generators, power supplies, and other equipment in ECE labs
  • Performed music on Continuum Fingerboard and Tesla coils at Engineering Open House (2013 video)
  • Designed, constructed and programmed Beauchamp Harmonic Tone Generator Simulator for the Sousa Museum on the U of I campus (details) (video)
  • Designed and constructed air-sensing LED Birthday Cake for Nick Holonyak's 80th birthday party (article)
1990-2006 Technician/Engineer/Programmer, CERL/PLATO/NovaNET/Pearson
  • Performed wire-wrap changes on Zephyr custom-built mainframe computers
  • Populated and repaired through-hole and surface-mount circuit boards, including boards with 240-pin PQFP microprocessors
  • Wrote scripts in Procomm/Aspect and Tcl/Expect to:
    • Transfer log files from servers and generate web stats reports
    • Retrieve and store configuration data from field equipment

  • Was solely responsible for testing and repair of custom communications hardware for NovaNET system (the successor of the PLATO computer system) from 1995-2005:
    • Received IPC 7711 Class 2 Rework Skills Certification with no formal training
    • Did rework on surface mount components with pin spacing as small as 0.5 mm
    • Tested and repaired hundreds of custom communications units
    • Wrote Procomm/Aspect and Visual Basic software to automate test procedures
    • Kept log of repair history for each unit
    • Maintained stock of electronic and mechanical parts
    • Programmed, installed, removed, and reprogrammed surface-mount flash ROMs
    • Designed and built logic comparator for in-circuit testing of ICs (details)
    • Designed and implemented electrical and mechanical changes to units
1993-94 Studio Technician, University of Illinois Computer Music Project
  • Rewired entire studio using loopless grounding scheme
1993-95 Technician, Symbolic Sound Corporation
  • Tested 56000-based DSP hardware before shipment
  • Modified through-hole circuit boards
1989-90 Studio Technician, University of Illinois Experimental Music Studios
  • Repaired and calibrated modular Moog synthesizer
  • Designed and built tape deck calibration oscillator, headphone intercom system, and analog control interface for modular Moog
1987-89 Co-op Engineer, Inland Steel Company
  • Built TTL hardware and wrote software for industrial control systems
  • Wrote QuickBasic software for pass schedule storage and steel providing

Education

Majored in Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Received A grades in the following courses:

Interests