University Projects

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The Heart Hackathon is a worldwide competition where teams of (mainly) undergraduates work towards making a totally artificial heart (TAH). I am a member of the UC Biomed team for 2025 as part of my final year project. Lose details on what I have down will be explained, but nothing in detail will be explained due to NDA.

Wacky Racers is a University of Canterbury competition for fourth-year Engineering students taking the Embedded Systems 2 course. Students are put into teams of four, where we compete in a race around a circuit. The teams are split into two sub-teams, with sub-team 1 working on the racer and sub-team 2 working on the hat to control the racer. I was part of my team's racer sub-team, so my main showing will discuss our racer.

The coffee making machine was completed as part of the Robotics course in fourth-year Engineering. This project envolved programming a robotic arm to use normal coffee making machines to make a cup of black coffee. This was done in teams of three students which used python and the RoboDK library to program the arm in the setup. 

The cusotm glider was deisgned and manufactured as part of the aerospace design course which could be taken in fourth-year Engineering. Students where put into teams of 4 and tasked the deisgn and build a hand thrown glider to travel as far as possible when thrown by a team member. 

RoboCup is a University of Canterbury competition for third-year Mechatronics Engineering students. Students are put into teams of three to four where we compete in a double knockout tournament. Parts and a budget are given to each team to design and program a robot to complete a task determined by the Robocup rules given. 

In a pair, I developed a control system for a helicopter using C programming for an embedded system. The system managed the helicopter’s altitude and angle based on user inputs, fulfilling the requirements outlined in the project brief.

The system was thoroughly tested in a simulated helicopter environment, allowing us to validate the control system's functionality. I have both the code and the report for this project, detailing the development process and testing results.

 In a team of three, I developed a reaction timer on an FPGA using VHDL. The timer tracks and stores the three most recent attempts, calculating the max, min, and average times for the user’s reaction.

The system counts down using a series of lights, with the final light turning off at a random interval, signalling the user to press a button as quickly as possible. I have the report and code for this project, highlighting our approach to digital logic design and timing accuracy.

 In a group of four, I contributed to the design of a custom CNC soldering machine capable of traversing a horizontal plane to accurately solder electrical components onto a PCB. 

Our innovative approach utilized polar coordinates and featured a circular base plate to securely hold the PCB in position during operation.

I have retained the reports, Presentation and the SolidWorks file for this project, which detail our design process and technical specifications.

 In a team of four, I helped design a line-following robot equipped with a custom PCB to compete in a robotics competition. Despite its size, which made navigating the track challenging, the robot successfully completed the course.

I have retained design files created in SolidWorks for this project, with no report written, and simple code used, but KiCad design files were lost.

This project was done in a pair with the main outcome of learning C and making a playable game to work on the UC Funkit 4. The game was chosen by each pair with me and my partner choosing to make Rock Paper Scissors. This project taught us how to work with different components in C and how to upload that program to a microchip. There was no report for this project but I do have the code for it.