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Luxembourg → Zürich

Ben LiesEngineer. Builder. Entrepreneur.

Mechanical Engineering student at ETH Zürich, building aerospace systems, embedded electronics and technology ventures.

I like building systems that have to work outside the lab.

Ben Lies
Study
ETH Zürich — Mechanical Engineering
Focus
Aerospace · Embedded · Control
Base
Luxembourg / Zürich
§01Work

Selected Work

Aerospace hardware, propulsion electronics and a first venture.

012024 — 2026 · Built & ground-tested

Thrust Vector Controlled Rocket

Aerospace · Control Systems · Embedded Systems

Built with Christophe Mayers

A finless model rocket built for active attitude control through a two-axis thrust-vectoring system — mechanics, electronics, estimation and control developed as one vehicle.

  • Two-axis thrust vector control
  • Custom Teensy 4.1 flight computer
  • LQR attitude control at 100 Hz
  • Validated against a nonlinear Simulink model
Two-axis thrust vector control gimbal holding the solid rocket motor
Two-axis TVC gimbal and motor mount
Thrust vector control system and flight computer on the test bench
Ground test rig
022025 — 2026 · Ongoing

ARIS — Propellant Control Board

Aerospace · Electronics · Embedded Systems

ARIS electronics team, Asteria · board layout reviewed by Carl Fabian Ceccucci

A 4-layer STM32G4 control board and its Rust firmware for Asteria, the liquid-propellant rocket built by ARIS at ETH Zürich — the electronics that read the tanks and drive the valves.

  • 4-layer STM32G4 Propellant Control Board, built and populated
  • One board, three positions: engine, LOX and fuel run tanks
  • Isolated CAN, pressure and thermocouple sensing, four solenoid channels
  • Rust firmware, bench-validated on solenoid switching and current sensing
The bare four-layer Propellant Control Board before assembly, silkscreen showing the S1–S4 solenoid channels, P1–P4 pressure ports, isolated CAN and arming sections
The fabricated board, before assembly
An ARIS rocket resting on its launch rail on a mountain road, snow-covered alpine valley behind it
ARIS on the rail — alpine launch campaign
032026 · Prototype · Zürich pilot in preparation

LazyCart

Entrepreneurship · AI · Logistics

Co-founder — 4-person ETH founding team

A venture turning a written grocery request — “five high-protein dinners under CHF 60” — into a meal plan and an editable basket of real products, priced against a supermarket catalogue.

  • Natural-language request to a basket of real products
  • Budget and dietary constraints handled in the request
  • Selected for Hack-Nation Venture Lab Cohort 2 — 30 of 5,500+ applicants
  • Working prototype; first Zürich pilot in preparation

30 / 5,500+

Selected for Hack-Nation Venture Lab Cohort 2

The LazyCart app showing a Smart Basket draft: named Migros products grouped by category with quantities and prices, a CHF 85.10 subtotal and an Add all to cart button
The basket draft, priced against a real catalogue
The LazyCart chat screen, where a written request for a meal plan returns dietary options to choose from
Ask in normal language

Earlier work

042024 · Flown and recovered

Weather Balloon — ALR goes to Space

Instrumentation · Embedded Systems · Atmospheric Data

With Ben Kasel and Christophe Mayers · Atert-Lycée Redange and LIST

A stratospheric balloon payload launched from Luxembourg with the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology. I designed the data acquisition PCB and wrote the software it flew on.

  • Custom data acquisition PCB — my design and software
  • Roughly two hours of stratospheric flight
  • Launched from Atert-Lycée Redange, Luxembourg
  • Recovered intact near Verdun, France
View from the weather balloon payload above the cloud layer
Above the cloud deck
Assembling the data acquisition board before launch
Assembling the board
§02Achievements

Selected Achievements

Competitions and programmes in physics, spaceflight and applied AI.

  1. A12026

    Jonk Fuerscher

    Luxembourg’s national science competition. The thrust vector controlled rocket won the Mobisciences Tunisia prize, which carries selection for I-FEST² — the International Festival of Engineering, Science and Technology in Tunisia.

    Prize winner — Mobisciences Tunisia

  2. A22026

    Global AI Hackathon

    Hack-Nation’s MIT-backed 24-hour sprint, 60+ countries. Built HumanAPI — a marketplace where AI agents hire humans for real-world tasks, paid over the Bitcoin Lightning Network and reachable through an MCP server.

    6th of 1,000+ teams

  3. A32026 — 27

    Bainhorizon STEM Mentoring

    Bain & Company’s mentoring programme for STEM students.

    Selected mentee

  4. A42024

    Luxembourg Physics Olympiad

    National physics competition, Luxembourg.

    5th nationally

  5. A52024

    European Physics Olympiad

    Selected to the Luxembourgish delegation for the European Physics Olympiad.

    Luxembourg delegation

  6. A62023

    Astronaut for a Day

    Luxembourg national selection programme, flown as a parabolic zero-gravity flight.

    Space Ambassador — parabolic flight

Documentation

The Jonk Fuerscher awards ceremony
Awards ceremony, Jonk Fuerscher
The four-person team standing on a terrace above the Zürich rooftops
The team, Zürich
The Luxembourgish delegation assembled at the European Physics Olympiad
Luxembourgish delegation, EuPhO
Participants floating in the cabin during a parabolic zero-gravity flight
Parabolic flight, zero gravity
§03Profile

About

Ben Lies
Zürich

I am a Mechanical Engineering student at ETH Zürich, originally from Luxembourg. What interests me is the point where mechanics, electronics, software and control stop being separate subjects and have to work as one system.

That has taken me from a balloon payload measuring the atmosphere over Luxembourg, to a finless rocket that has to steer itself, to propulsion electronics at ARIS — each one a version of the same problem: hardware that has to keep working when nobody is standing next to it.

LazyCart is where that goes next. A venture is another system that either works outside the lab or does not, and I would rather find that out than argue about it.

Currently

Propellant control electronics at ARIS, ETH Zürich

Interests

Propulsion, flight control, embedded systems, ventures

§04Journey

Progression

From national physics competitions to aerospace hardware and a first venture.

  1. 2023

    Astronaut for a Day

    Space Ambassador — parabolic flight, Luxembourg

  2. 2024

    Physics Olympiads

    5th nationally; Luxembourg delegation at EuPhO

    ALR goes to Space

    Stratospheric balloon payload, with LIST

    TVC rocket

    Two-person build begins; ground-tested by 2026

  3. 2024 — 2025

    ETH Zürich — Physics

    Foundation year, then a deliberate move to a more applied focus

  4. 2025

    ETH Zürich — Mechanical Engineering

    BSc, ongoing

  5. 2025 — 2026

    ARIS

    Propellant Control Board and firmware for Asteria

  6. 2026

    Jonk Fuerscher

    Mobisciences Tunisia — selected for I-FEST²

    LazyCart

    Co-founded — AI and logistics

§05Contact

Let’s build something ambitious.

For engineering, aerospace, technology or entrepreneurial opportunities, feel free to get in touch.