Current Projects

Beagle is a modern legal practice management and litigation intelligence platform designed to bring the core operations of a law firm into a single native application.

 

It combines matter management, client and contact records, timekeeping, billing, expenses, tasks, trust accounting, reporting, document workflows, communications, and litigation-specific tools in an integrated workspace. Beagle is being developed primarily as a native Apple-platform application, with macOS at the center and companion functionality for iPhone and Apple Watch.

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Beyond traditional practice management, Beagle is designed around the information-intensive work of litigation. Its developing intelligence tools help attorneys organize chronologies, identify risks and contradictions, analyze damages and discovery, work with case documents, and use AI-assisted workflows without forcing lawyers to move their work into a collection of unrelated services. Security, firm-level data isolation, synchronization, and controlled use of AI are treated as core architectural requirements rather than later additions.

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Beagle is intended to become a comprehensive operating environment for modern legal practice: one application in which administrative work, case management, communications, documents, and substantive litigation preparation can coexist. Development is ongoing, with an emphasis on native performance, a consistent professional interface, and increasingly sophisticated litigation workflows. Additional information about the project is available at beagleapp.org.

At the heart of this project is a high-powered, pulsed Nd:YAG laser system intended for lunar laser ranging experiments—bouncing photons off retroreflectors left on the Moon to measure the Earth-Moon distance with centimeter precision. The laser is powered by a custom-designed capacitor bank composed of ten 10,000 µF 400 V capacitors, capable of storing and discharging immense amounts of energy in microseconds to produce high-peak-power optical pulses.

 

The capacitor bank is assembled with thick copper bus bars, ceramic bleeder resistors, and robust safety measures, including Faraday shielding and anti-arcing isolation. Charging circuits and trigger systems are carefully designed to ensure precise control of pulse timing and energy delivery. The laser and optics are housed in a modular system allowing for beam expansion, polarization control, and accurate alignment with a distant lunar target.

 

This lunar ranging system serves both as a scientific experiment and a proof-of-concept for compact, high-energy photonics platforms. It demonstrates key principles of time-of-flight measurement, optical pulse generation, and capacitor discharge physics. Ultimately, this project is about pushing the boundaries of DIY precision measurement while engaging with real-world astrophysics challenges.

Argon Aerospace has conducted experimental work examining the synthesis of carboxylic acids through Grignard chemistry, with particular emphasis on the use of organomagnesium intermediates to form new carbon–carbon bonds and introduce carboxyl functionality. The work combines established organic reaction principles with practical investigation of the variables that influence reaction performance, including reagent quality, moisture sensitivity, reaction conditions, and workup technique.

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The project has also examined reaction selectivity and the formation of competing products. Repeated experiments have been used to compare product appearance, crystallization behavior, solubility, melting characteristics, and purification performance, with particular attention to neutral organic byproducts that may form alongside the desired carboxylic acid. These observations provide a practical basis for evaluating competing reaction pathways and understanding how experimental conditions influence product distribution.

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More broadly, the work forms part of Argon Aerospace's continuing study of small-scale synthetic chemistry, reaction optimization, and reproducibility. The objective is not simply to obtain a target compound, but to develop a systematic understanding of how reaction mechanism, process conditions, purification strategy, and physical characterization interact in practice. Grignard-based carboxylation provides a useful model system for studying those relationships and comparing alternative approaches to carboxylic acid synthesis.

This project involves the design and construction of a fully functional Raman spectrometer using off-the-shelf optical components, custom 3D-printed mounts, and a precision alignment system. The goal is to make vibrational spectroscopy accessible and affordable without sacrificing analytical power, allowing for molecular identification and chemical structure analysis in a compact, lab-built format. A diode laser, beam splitter, optical filters, and a CCD spectrometer form the core of the system.

 

By designing the optical path with adjustable mounts and broadband dielectric mirrors, the spectrometer can be tuned for optimal Raman shift detection in the visible and near-infrared range. A front-surface mirror and carefully aligned lens system ensure maximum signal collection from the sample while minimizing stray light and Rayleigh scatter. The instrument is mounted on an optical breadboard for stability, with all components secured for repeatable experiments.

 

This system enables chemical identification of solids, liquids, and powders, including pigments, polymers, and potential contaminants. It’s a stepping stone toward more advanced spectroscopy setups and offers opportunities for custom fluorescence filtering, remote sampling, and integration with laser sources of varying wavelengths. Ideal for students, researchers, and makers alike, this project embodies the blend of scientific rigor and DIY innovation.

Burton is an offline-first language learning application for macOS and iOS developed by Argon Aerospace and named for the nineteenth-century explorer and linguist Sir Richard Francis Burton. Rather than organizing language study around short exercises or game mechanics, Burton uses a document-centered approach in which learners read passages, translate them, investigate unfamiliar vocabulary and grammar, submit their work for assessment, and receive individualized instruction based on what they actually understood and where they struggled.

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The application uses locally running language models together with extensive offline linguistic resources, allowing its principal study functions to operate without sending a learner's writing or study history to a remote AI service. Burton currently supports French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Dutch, with English as the instructional language. Integrated dictionaries, contextual word explanations, adaptive passage generation, translation assessment, personalized lessons, vocabulary study, flashcards, and progress tracking are designed to work together as parts of a single learning system.

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Burton's objective is to combine the flexibility of an AI tutor with the permanence and privacy of native desktop software. The learner is not confined to a predetermined sequence of exercises: difficulty, vocabulary, grammatical focus, and subsequent study can respond to actual performance while preserving a structured record of progress over time. A macOS release is the initial focus, with an iOS version being developed around the same learning model and shared language resources.

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At the core of this research is an exploration of quantum dots (QDs)—nanoscale semiconductor crystals whose optical and electronic properties are defined by quantum confinement. The project encompasses a diverse range of materials, including cadmium selenide (CdSe), zinc oxide (ZnO), carbon-based quantum dots (CQDs), and indium phosphide (InP) along with related phosphide compounds. Each system offers unique tunability in emission wavelength, bandgap, and surface chemistry, forming a broad platform for investigating nanoscale photophysics and optoelectronic behavior.

 

The hydrothermal synthesis approach serves as the foundation for this work, enabling precise control of particle size, crystallinity, and surface passivation under high-temperature, high-pressure aqueous conditions. By varying precursors, pH, reaction time, and capping agents, the synthesis process can produce monodisperse nanocrystals with tailored emission profiles spanning from ultraviolet to near-infrared. This method also supports eco-friendly pathways for carbon and InP quantum dots, offering lower toxicity alternatives to traditional cadmium-based systems without sacrificing photoluminescence efficiency.

 

Post-synthesis, the project emphasizes recovery, purification, and characterization, employing centrifugation, solvent exchange, and ligand stabilization to isolate clean, stable colloidal dispersions. Optical spectroscopy (UV-Vis, photoluminescence), X-ray diffraction, and electron microscopy provide quantitative insight into size distribution and quantum yield.

 

Ultimately, this quantum dot research bridges nanochemistry, materials science, and photonic engineering—demonstrating how hydrothermal synthesis can create quantum-confined materials with applications ranging from LEDs and photovoltaics to bioimaging and quantum computing. It reflects a commitment to scalable, sustainable nanomaterial innovation while probing the fundamental link between atomic structure and quantum behavior.