Mechanical Engineer

Stu Helgeson

I design and build physical products — from wearables and connected home devices to medical devices. Mechanical engineering, from first sketch to mass production.

About

Product Design Engineer at Reality Labs (Meta), working on the neural band. B.S.E. & M.S.E., Mechanical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania. Based in New York, NY.

I like owning the whole arc of a product — concept, mechanism design, prototyping, DFM, and the factory floor. Previously I led mechanical engineering on Bigfoot Unity, a smart insulin pen system taken from prototype through FDA approval and commercial launch (acquired by Abbott in 2023). Before that: Xfinity smart home and connectivity hardware at Comcast. I'm named on patents covering consumer hardware and medical device systems.

Experience

Product Design Engineer, Reality Labs · Meta
Nov 2021 – Present

Working on the neural band program at Reality Labs.

Mechanical Engineer · Bigfoot Biomedical
Jan 2019 – Nov 2021 · San Francisco Bay Area

Lead mechanical engineer taking Bigfoot Unity — a smart insulin pen management system — from early prototype build through EVT, DVT, FDA approval, and commercial launch. The Bigfoot Unity business was acquired by Abbott in 2023.

Product Design Engineering, Mechanical Engineer II · Comcast
Feb 2017 – Jan 2019 · Philadelphia, PA

Designed, 3D-modeled, and prototyped devices across a diverse product line: connected doorbell, keypad, camera, gateway, door/window sensors, home security hub, set-top boxes, and WiFi extenders — plus the X1 voice remote program, tens of millions of units shipped.

Mechanical Engineering Intern · Comcast
Summer 2016 · Philadelphia, PA

Summer internship on the hardware engineering team — returned full-time after graduating that December.

B.S.E. & M.S.E., Mechanical Engineering · University of Pennsylvania
2012 – 2016

Sub-matriculated into the master's program junior year. Captain, Penn Varsity Sprint Football Team.

Patents

US D926687 · Issued Aug 3, 2021 Rotating Ground Prong Anchor
US 20220339367 A1 · Filed Apr 22, 2022 Insulin delivery and data collection systems and methods
US 20220105282 A1 · Filed Sep 28, 2021 Injection site determination systems and methods

Selected Projects

Professional work, latest first. University projects are in the archive below.

Brilliant Pad prototype

Brilliant Pad

Product Design · Prototyping

Given the details of the device in the patent, I had to design and build a working prototype to demonstrate the feasibility of an automated house breaking pad dispenser. The project started with brainstorming ideas on a piece of paper, and grew into the fabrication of a functioning prototype. Along the way, I learned a ton, from figuring out what a microcontroller is to building molds and working with composites. It was by no means easy but a challenge I would accept again and again.

This early stage prototype is the foundation for the commercial product Brilliant Pad.

xFinity Home products

Smart Home — xFinity Home

Consumer Electronics · Comcast

Nightingale

WiFi connected xFinity home doorbell. Integrates with the existing xFinity Home system. Allows for two way communication between the device and other devices; another doorbell, TV, home security tablet, voice remote.
Status: Confidential Design. Plan of record 2019.

Talon

xFinity Home Security Keypad. Used to arm and disarm the xFinity Home Security and Automation System. The Talon adds a biometric sensor in an updated form factor to improve the user experience for arming and disarming their security system.
Status: Confidential Design. Concept Product.

Door Window Sensors

Helped in the design of a new door window sensor with improved battery and wireless performance. Submitted a patent proposal for a new battery manufacturing method to reduce internal resistance of small form factor batteries. The solution increases battery life in cold weather conditions from existing battery designs. Built test rig to evaluate and test door window sensors. Wrote C code to repeatedly test the sensors in a window installation. The system allowed the tester to automate up and down motion to test the performance of a sensor. Challenges included reducing vibrational noise as to not interfere with accelerometer sensor readings.
Status: Confidential Design. Ongoing development.

xFi WiFi products

WiFi Products — xFi

Consumer Electronics · Comcast

XFi Extender V2

Version two of a pluggable WiFi extender for mesh networking: increased WiFi performance, updated form factor. Ran thermal simulations to define the minimum size that met performance specs for a wall outlet design. Worked with industrial design team to confirm the form factor size and geometry. Designed internal mountings and thermal management features. Worked in tandem with our board designers to create the board layout and stack up. Working with CMO partner in Taiwan to match our intended design and performance.
Status: Confidential Design. In production. Release 2019.

Jaguar

Concept product integrating whole home voice and audio with mesh networking capabilities. Ran thermal simulations to get an idea of the volume required for a successful product. Relayed information to the industrial design team to help create a working design. Created stack up from layouts from electrical engineers. Ran thermal simulations to confirm final design. Took the industrial design volume CAD and split the part and added internal details for the looks-like/sounds-like prototype. Worked with a prototyping company to manufacture the prototype.
Status: Confidential Design. Entering production. Plan of record 2019.

xFinity TV products

TV Products — xFinity

Consumer Electronics · Comcast

xFinity Voice Remotes

Prototyped a portable battery base for the new always-on voice remote. Modified CAD design to attach to the remote with no design modifications to the device. Utilized a friction fit and magnets to securely attach the battery base. Designed features to contain the PCB and lithium ion battery.
Status: Confidential Design. Product Concept.

xFinity Coaxial Connector

Developed a design to improve the customer experience for attaching a coaxial cable to a device. The mechanism slides over the F-style connector and cinches down with a quarter turn, providing auditory feedback and locking the cable to the device. Patent submitted.
Status: Confidential Design. Product Concept.

University archive

School projects from Penn — classes, labs, and research.

PixelPixelIn my Smart Objects: Toy design class, Eddie Cohen and I created a wearable that lets kids merge digital and physical games — a versatile wearable for developing their own tag style games.
RobockeyRobockeyFinal project in my Mechatronics class: an autonomous team of hockey-playing robots, designed and built from scratch in three weeks.
SpeakerSpeakerThe orchestra project for my mechatronics class: learned to filter and amplify signals to play tones, housed in a laser-cut living-hinge MDF enclosure.
Cruise ControlCruise ControlFirst project in my junior MEAM lab: a remote controlled car driven by an iPhone over Bluetooth, built from scrap parts leftover from Robockey.
OTRBOTRBA project from my controls class: a servo-driven frame balancing a ping pong ball, guided by a Pixie camera and a PID controller.
Light PaintingLight PaintingIn my Intro to Robotics, we used a robot to make a light painting photograph. We used a modified industrial Puma 260 robot. There were several steps to this project. First was to find the DH parameters of the RRR robot. Next we had to find the inverse kinematics for the Puma. After testing our IK solutions, our team created a set of points for the Puma to “paint”. We chose a scene from Space Invaders.
ProtonProtonAs a member of the Haptics Lab at Penn, worked with Alex Burka to develop a portable haptic and visual data collection device, with a research team at Cal Berkeley.

Skills & Interests

The toolkit, and what I do when I'm not engineering.

Engineering

  • Mechanical design & mechanism design
  • Design for manufacturing (DFM)
  • Rapid prototyping & 3D printing
  • Tolerance analysis
  • Consumer electronics enclosures
  • Factory liaison & mass production

Tools

  • SolidWorks
🏔️ Mountaineering 🚴 Cycling ⛷️ Skiing 🤖 Robotics

Get in touch

Have a project, a role, or just a mechanism you're excited about? Send a note — I read everything.