Hello there 👋
Mechanical engineering · Lehigh University ’27 · Bethlehem, PA
Hey — I’m Abylaikhan, a mechanical engineering student at Lehigh University. I like designing things, building and assembling them, and finally seeing them work, move and do complicated tasks exactly the way I wanted.
Over the last three years I’ve built robotic swimmers for fish-inspired propulsion experiments in labs at Lehigh and Harvard, worked on our Formula SAE car’s suspension, and led the mechanical design of OSPREY, Lehigh’s first satellite, which our team raised $200K to send to space.
I’m from Kokshetau, Kazakhstan, and I ski ⛷ and ride horses 🐎 whenever I get the chance — ideally in the Tian Shan mountains back home.
Featured projects All projects →
Cyber-Physical Robotic Flapper
A robotic foil I designed and built for Lehigh's water channel. Its control loop physically reproduces any spring you program — stiffness, damping, inertia — without a single real spring, so the lab changes the setup with a keystroke instead of rebuilding it. Best Undergraduate Poster at ASME IMECE 2025.
In progressCarbon-Fiber Suspension Arms — Formula SAE
Replacing our race car's steel suspension arms with carbon-fiber tubes bonded into aluminum joints. CAD and FEA, machining the joints ourselves, and a test program to prove the bond before it goes on the car.
Swimming in a Wake — Harvard Lauder Lab
A summer at Harvard's Lauder Lab studying how a fish swimming behind another one gets a free ride from its wake — robotic flappers, 3-D printed fish and laser flow imaging.
OSPREY — Lehigh's First CubeSat
Lehigh's first satellite, a shoebox-sized CubeSat built to spot ocean plastic from orbit. I led the mechanical design — fitting every component inside the frame and keeping the mass and balance where they need to be — on a team that raised $200K to send it to space.
Drone Wind-Tunnel Testing — Aerotargets
A summer of wind-tunnel testing on a scaled target drone during my internship at Aerotargets International — designing the mounting fixture, running the speed sweeps up to 84 mph, and turning the force data into something the company's engineers could use.
Injection-Molded Race Car
A two-part aluminum injection mold for a race-car body, designed and machined by my team in the manufacturing course — then run on the press to make the parts and race them.
News
November 2026: 🎤 Presenting “Passive Swimming Dynamics in a Thrust-Producing Vortex Wake” at the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in Orlando, FL.
September 2026: Presented the same work at the ONR MURI Annual Review Meeting at Lehigh University.
August 2026: 🐟 Wrapped up my summer at the Lauder Laboratory, Harvard University, studying how fish gain thrust from the wake of a leading swimmer.
May 2026: Started a summer research internship at the Lauder Laboratory, Harvard University, working on bio-inspired swimming and hydrodynamics 🎓.
December 2025: Joined the Lehigh Formula SAE team as a Design and Manufacturing Engineer — carbon-fiber suspension control arms 🏎️.
November 2025: 🏆 Won the Best Undergraduate Research Poster Award at ASME IMECE for “Design and Validation of a Cyber-Physical Fluid Dynamics System for Bio-Inspired Propulsion Studies.”
Earlier news
November 2025: Presented “Uncovering the Fluid–Structure Interactions of Wave-Assisted Propulsion via Cyber-Physical Fluid Dynamics” at the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) in Houston, TX.
October 2025: Presented WAP project progress at the Annual ONR MURI Meeting at Lehigh University.
May 2025: Awarded the Rossin Research Fellowship to work in the Unsteady Flow Interactions Lab on cyber-physical systems for wave-assisted propulsion (WAP).
December 2024: 🚀 Our team raised $200K to send OSPREY, Lehigh’s first nanosatellite, to space 🛰️.
September 2024: Started working on the Bio-Inspired Riverine Power Generation Project 🌊.
August 2024: Started a new position as MakerSpace Coordinator at Design Labs @ Lehigh University.
August 2024: Presented “Design and Implementation of a Dual-Axis Pitch and Heave Setup for Bio-Propulsion Studies” at the Mountain Top Research Conference at Lehigh 🎤.
July 2024: Started working with Aerotargets International ✈️.
May 2024: Awarded the STEM-SI Scholarship to work as an Undergraduate Research Intern over the summer 🏅.
April 2024: Received the Michael Levin Advanced Technology Award for Best Technological Startup at Lehigh 🏆.
December 2023: Began research at the Unsteady Flow Interactions Laboratory 🔬.
November 2023: Our team submitted the first proposal to the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative to get funding and a spot on a SpaceX rocket to launch a satellite into space.
August 2023: Started my Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at Lehigh University 👨💻.
June 2023: Won a $5,000 grant and was recognized as a Top-3 SpaceTech Startup at the Central Asia Venture Forum 🚀.
May 2023: Graduated from Nazarbayev Intellectual School of Physics and Mathematics in Kokshetau, Kazakhstan 🎓🇰🇿.
Experience
- May – Aug 2026Research InternLauder Laboratory, Harvard University · Cambridge, MARobotic-fish experiments and flow imaging on how a swimmer gains thrust from a leader’s wake (ONR MURI program).
- Nov 2023 – presentUndergraduate Researcher — Mechanical Design & TestUnsteady Flow Interactions Lab, Lehigh University · Prof. Keith MooredDesigned and built the lab’s cyber-physical robotic flapper and run the experiments on it.
- Dec 2025 – presentDesign & Manufacturing EngineerLehigh Formula SAECarbon-fiber suspension control arms — design, FEA, machining and testing.
- May – Aug 2024Mechanical Engineering InternAerotargets International · Kingston, PAWind-tunnel test program on a scaled target drone.
- Sep 2023 – Sep 2025Lead Mechanical Engineer, OSPREY CubeSatLehigh University Space InitiativeStructure, packaging and mass properties for Lehigh’s first satellite; led a team of six.
- Dec 2023 – presentHead Teaching Assistant, ENGR 010 · Makerspace Coordinator (2024–25)Lehigh UniversityWeekly Python and robotics labs for first-year engineers; ran the makerspace for a semester. More →
