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Jon Coughlin

Developer of Light-Hearted Flight Simulations

 
 

Games

 
 

Cats Fly Helicopters

A friendly feline flight sim.

Play as an enterprising young cat from an odd family of scrap collectors. Build and upgrade helicopters to take on a wide variety jobs in an open physics playground.

Wishlist: Cats Fly Helicopters on Steam

Cats Fly Helicopters is a collaboration with Flippfly


Roger Meatball

Land your plane on the aircraft carrier.

Roger Meatball is an accessible but full-featured flight simulation. The game is designed to be played on standard console controllers. Roger Meatball is a streamlined alternative to serious flight simulations.

Play the demo: RogerMeatball.com

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The Eyes of Cheatin Hitman

Agent 47 is tasked with assassinating the crooked boss of the Clowinging Union, “Lippy the Mouthless Mime.”

A parody of the Hitman series staged in Wisconsin. The game features fishing, unicycling, and cheese.

Play it today: it only takes ten minutes

Jon Coughlin

 

I am an independent game developer from Madison, Wisconsin. I have ten years of experience working as an aerospace engineer, where my specialty is developing flight simulations. I started developing games in 2013 as a hobby, and have been working professionally in games since 2017.

I am interested in collaborating with teams pushing the state of the art in accessible flight and narrative in video games. 

I am also a proud husband and father, and a School Board member in Stoughton, WI. 

 

Digital Presence

itch.io: coughlinjon

email: joncoughlingames@gmail.com

twitter: @clicktozoom

twitch: JonMakesGames

Jonathon A. Coughlin

Objective

Advance the state-of-the-art in play

Education

Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN                                                                              May 2009

Bachelors of Science in Aerospace Engineering                                                             GPA: 3.7

Skills

Highly proficient in representation of real-world physical phenomena through modeling and simulation

Strong foundation in 3D Newtonian physics and aerospace principles including but not limited to:

  • Vectors, coordinate systems and transformations, forces/moments/mass properties

  • Rotation dynamics including Euler and quaternion representations of rotation states

  • Guidance algorithms and autopilot design

Software Proficiencies

  • Languages: C#, C++, Javascript, HTML/CSS, Matlab/SIMULINK

  • Tools: Unity, Visual Studio, Blender, Sketchbook, GIMP, Various CAD programs, Git, Mercurial, SVN

  • Extensive knowledge of Windows-based and UNIX-based platforms

Independent Game Development in Unity C#

Roger Meatball - 2018 to Present, Independent
RogerMeatball.com

  • Casual flight simulation about landing planes on an aircraft carrier

  • Featured in the atrium of Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry during Bit Bash 2019

  • Asymmetric, cooperative multiplayer offering unique roles for pilot and landing signal officer

  • Proof of concept for modular flight simulation architecture

Cats Fly Helicopters - 2017 to 2019, Collaboration with Flippfly
CatsFlyHelicopters.com

  • Designed & implemented realistic helicopter flight dynamics with accessible control scheme

  • Gameplay and physics programming for props and machinery in physics sandbox

  • Dynamic, optimized fire, buoyancy, aerodynamics simulations

The Eyes of Cheatin Hitman – 3 Months, Independent

  • Linear first-person comedy set in Wisconsin, fully voice-acted

  • Featured at Glitchcon 2017 as a part of Minnecade

Aerospace Engineering & Management Experience - 10 Years

Aerospace Engineer – Dynetics, Inc.
Huntsville, AL     
2009 – 2014

Missile Modeling, Simulation & Analysis – 5 years

  • Developed, maintained and exercised 6-DOF simulations of missiles ranging in class from shoulder-launched to anti-satellite

  • Characterized missile performance against a wide range of threats using Monte Carlo techniques and parallel processing computer clusters

  • Modeled diverse sets of ground/air/space-based targets capable of evasive maneuvering

Project Management – 3 years

  • Led teams of 2-4 engineers on projects developing simulations and performing analysis, often working with our customer to refine requirements and validating our product against those requirements upon delivery

  • Served as technical point of contact with customers, maintained day-to-day communication

  • Estimated project costs and crafted technical responses to proposal requests

Flight Test Support & Application Development – 2 years

  • Member of flight test team, deploying several times per year for up to two weeks per deployment, modifying/exercising simulation to plan flight tests, predict and verify hardware performance, and diagnose flight test anomalies in a high stress environment

  • Designed GUI for real-time flight test software, compressing a wealth of hardware health and status data into a collection of only the most mission critical flags, numbers, and graphics.

  • Engineered tools to automatically process flight test data, replicate real-world performance within 6-DOF simulation, and generate plots for quick-look report

  • Designed test-range safety analysis package to communicate risks associated with all feasible test article failure modes

  • Presented flight test quick-look reports and findings to customers within hours of test events

Rocket Engineer – Orbital Technologies Corporation
Madison, WI      2014 – 2016, 2017 - Current

Rocket Test Facility Software Development

  • Leading development on an in-house test facility monitoring and operation software package (C#)

  • Software runs five rocket test cells, ranging in thrust capability from pounds to tens of thousands of pounds

Rocket Engine and Spacecraft Simulation & Analysis

  • Scaled and positioned control systems on conceptual space launch vehicles

  • Built and exercised node-based simulations of rocket engine test facilities and rocket engines

  • CFD lead and mechanical design support on spacecraft air-conditioner design team

  • Sized thermal rejection systems for an inflatable spacecraft

*PDF resume and references available upon request