About me

I'm Kempton.

I'm finishing my last semester of mechanical engineering at Texas A&M. I build hardware and software, work on rocket test systems, and make time for backpacking and exploring outdoors.

Explore my projects LinkedIn

Kempton Burton backpacking above an alpine lake in Colorado — Colorado, summer 2025.

Engineering, software, and the space between

My background brings together mechanical engineering at Texas A&M, industry experience at SpaceX, and student rocketry. I’m especially interested in the connection between a physical system and the tools we use to understand and operate it.

At SRT, I’ve helped lead the development of data acquisition, real-time controls, and software infrastructure for integrated engine tests. That work supported the team’s Gluon hybrid engine testing, including its first successful throttled hot fire. It has meant thinking through the whole system: sensors, wiring, operator interfaces, and the information a team needs during a test.

I also build DARTWIC, software for telemetry, scripting, plugins, and mission tooling. It’s a place to put a lot of those interests into practice and develop tools that other people can use and extend.

DARTWIC displaying a tank control schematic and live telemetry — DARTWIC — bringing system schematics, live data, and controls into one interface.

The open DACS box showing its wiring, sensor connections, and control hardware — Data acquisition and controls box — the hardware behind rocket engine testing.

For more on my professional background, you can find my experience and education on LinkedIn. The project pages cover individual builds in more detail.

How I like to work

I like being involved from the first question through the build and test. That might mean working through a mechanical design, tracking down a noisy sensor, or making an interface easier to use. I enjoy learning whatever the problem calls for.

I care about leaving a project in a state that someone else can understand. Clear documentation, modular designs, and tools that can adapt to new requirements matter to me, especially after working on a student team where knowledge needs to carry over from one group to the next.

Beyond engineering

Outside of projects and classes, I like backpacking, camping, and getting out into the mountains. In summer 2025, I went backpacking in Colorado. Both Colorado photos on this page are from that trip: time on the trail, camp in the mountains, and a very different setting from a test site or a desk.

At camp beside a blue tent in a rocky Colorado mountain valley — At camp on a Colorado backpacking trip, summer 2025.

I’m also a scuba diver, with PADI Rescue Diver and Nitrox certifications. Exploring outdoors is something I want to make more room for here, alongside the engineering work.

Scuba diving among the beams of a submerged wreck — Exploring below the surface.

This site brings those parts of my life together: projects, trips, and posts about what I’m working on and learning along the way.