Biography
I am a student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte studying Electrical and Computer Engineering. My work centers on designing custom circuitry and programming microcontrollers to create functional physical products.
I focus on hardware safety, thermal planning, and clean low-level firmware structures. I also participate in the UNC Charlotte Robotics Fighting Club, contributing to structural design and motor control workflows.
Skills
Design & Simulation
KiCad, Fusion 360, AutoCAD, SolidWorks, PCB Layout, Circuit Diagrams, Meshmixer, 3D Printing
Embedded Systems
C++, Python, Arduino, Embedded C, UART, PWM, I2C/SPI Protocols
Hardware & Prototyping
Soldering, PCB Bring-up & Debugging, Circuit Prototyping
Work History
Undergraduate Research Assistant
UNC CharlotteTeacher’s Assistant
Central Piedmont Community CollegeMathematics Tutor
Central Piedmont Community CollegeInvolvements
Charlotte Rocketry Club
UNC CharlotteRobotics Fighting Club
UNC CharlotteHack_NCState
NC State UniversityEngineering Hardware Meet-ups
Bitar Machine DesignProjects
High-Current Synchronous Buck Converter
Designing a 4S LiPo (13.2–16.8 V) to 12 V, 50 A (600 W) power board shared by the club’s ASME and IEEE robots. In progress since October 2026.
Engineering Highlights
- Built the design around a TI LM5145 synchronous buck controller with paralleled external MOSFETs, chosen to handle high current and spread out heat.
- Sized the inductor and input/output capacitor banks from datasheet equations, accounting for ripple current and ceramic DC-bias derating.
- Added stall current limiting, low-battery cutoff, input TVS protection, and fusing.
- Captured the schematic in KiCad with Git version control.
Electronic Speed Controller (ESC)
Designed a custom 24 V DC motor Electronic Speed Controller (ESC) supporting up to 5 A of continuous current. The project prioritized safe power delivery, high-efficiency switching, and precise motor speed control. The board layout was optimized for thermal dissipation and trace widths appropriate for the 5 A current draw.
Engineering Highlights
- Designed multi-layer PCB layouts in KiCad featuring dedicated ground planes and power pours.
- Implemented via stitching to improve ground plane path efficiency and thermal conductivity.
- Selected components by cross-referencing datasheets for tolerance, footprint size, and availability.
- Styled trace geometry to withstand high-current thresholds safely without overheating.
- Configured PWM signal input routes for motor speed throttling.
Embedded MCU Power & Programming Board
Designed a custom microcontroller (MCU) development board that accepts high-voltage power input (24-36 V) and steps it down to a clean, stable 3.3 V using an onboard buck regulator. The board incorporates a modern USB-C connector for programming and board power, along with necessary protective circuitry.
Engineering Highlights
- Integrated a buck regulator circuit to step down 24-36 V voltage sources to a stable 3.3 V for embedded hardware.
- Configured USB-C connector routes for dual-mode power delivery and serial flashing interface.
- Designed protection support circuitry, including ESD protection and reverse polarity prevention.
- Optimized PCB layout around regulator decoupling capacitors to minimize high-frequency noise.
- Planned clear ground routing to avoid interference with analog signals.
BallerIo
Built a real-time multiplayer browser game with Node.js and WebSockets, syncing player state across concurrent clients at roughly 30 updates per second. Players compete using merge-attraction mechanics, split/eject actions, and an XP/leveling system.
Engineering Highlights
- Built a WebSocket-based real-time server in Node.js to broadcast synchronized game state to all connected clients.
- Implemented merge-attraction mechanics, split/eject actions, and an XP/leveling progression system.
- Tuned server tick rate to sustain ~30 updates/second under concurrent multiplayer load.
- Deployed to production on Render with version control and continuous deployment through GitHub.
Remote Control Robot
Combined RC car mechanics with autonomous robotics concepts to build a mobile platform. An ESP32 drives two brushed DC motors through a TB6612FNG dual H-bridge driver, with ultrasonic distance sensing, motion detection, buzzers, and an onboard camera letting the robot navigate environments and adapt its movement based on sensor feedback.
Engineering Highlights
- Programmed drive logic, obstacle avoidance routines, and button-triggered behaviors in C++ on the ESP32.
- Drove two brushed DC motors through a TB6612FNG dual H-bridge, tuning PWM output for smooth throttle response.
- Integrated an ultrasonic distance sensor, motion detector, buzzers, and an onboard camera for obstacle detection, alerts, and remote viewing.
- Configured low-resistance common-ground connections across motor driver, sensors, and controller to avoid ground loop noise.
- Wired power distribution across motors, driver, MCU, sensors, and feedback subsystems for stability under payload.
Automated Bridge Project
Built a motorized bridge that opens and closes automatically in response to sensor input, running off a custom MCU board. One brushed DC motor and a servo are driven through a TB6612FNG dual H-bridge, with traffic LEDs and buzzers signaling crossing state to vehicles and boats.
Engineering Highlights
- Programmed control logic on a custom MCU board to automate bridge opening/closing sequences from ultrasonic sensor input.
- Drove one brushed DC motor and a servo through a TB6612FNG dual H-bridge for lift and locking motion.
- Integrated traffic LED and buzzer signaling to simulate real-world crossing safety behavior.
- Fabricated the structure from a self-designed 3D-printed bridge deck on hand-cast cement pillars.
- Combined mechanics, power distribution, and control into one working prototype for safe boat/vehicle crossing scenarios.
Door Alarm System
Built an ESP32-based door alarm system using a reed switch for door/latch detection, paired with a DFPlayer Mini, microSD card, and speaker to play custom audio alerts when movement is sensed.
Engineering Highlights
- Designed sensor-state logic to detect door/latch movement via a reed switch.
- Implemented UART communication between the ESP32 and DFPlayer Mini module.
- Configured microSD-based audio playback for custom alert sounds.
- Triggered real-time MP3 playback in response to detected door movement.
Person & Object Identifier
Designed and implemented a real-time person and object identification system built around a YOLO-based object detection pipeline. Prior to development, I produced a dedicated system architecture and data-flow diagram, using the project as a deliberate exercise in mapping out topology and structuring a multi-stage computer vision pipeline before writing a single line of code.
Engineering Highlights
- Implemented a YOLO-based detection pipeline to identify and classify people and objects from live video input in real time.
- Authored a full system architecture and data-flow diagram ahead of implementation, defining clear boundaries between capture, preprocessing, inference, and output stages.
- Tuned model confidence thresholds and non-max suppression parameters to balance detection accuracy against false-positive rate.
- Structured the pipeline into modular, independently testable stages to keep the system extensible for future model or sensor upgrades.
- Benchmarked frame-processing throughput and inference latency to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks in the detection loop.
Personal A.I. Assistant
Built a hands-free voice assistant in Python that runs entirely on local hardware, with no cloud speech services in the loop. A local speech-to-text engine feeds a reasoning layer, and GPU-accelerated neural text-to-speech returns a spoken reply in roughly one to two seconds. An intent router turns everyday spoken requests into real actions across the calendar, browser, and file system.
Engineering Highlights
- Built a full local voice pipeline pairing a speech-to-text engine with GPU neural text-to-speech, keeping audio off third-party servers.
- Implemented wake-word activation and push-to-talk alongside barge-in interruption, so speaking over a reply cancels playback and starts a new turn immediately.
- Wrote an intent router that classifies spoken commands and dispatches them to calendar, browser control, and file management handlers.
- Added a real-time browser visualizer over WebSockets, streaming live audio levels and assistant state to an animated interface.
- Tuned speech recognition parameters against real microphone input rather than clean samples, after clean-audio-only testing proved misleading.
Calorie & Macro Tracker
Built a web app for tracking daily calories and macronutrients, with a searchable food database and barcode scanning so meals can be logged in seconds rather than typed out by hand. The app extends past food logging into grocery tracking, letting items be entered manually or pulled from Costco, Target, and Harris Teeter product data.
Engineering Highlights
- Implemented daily calorie and macronutrient logging with running totals for protein, carbohydrates, and fats against user-set targets.
- Integrated a searchable food database with barcode scanning to resolve products to their nutrition data on the spot.
- Built grocery tracking that accepts manual entry or lookups against Costco, Target, and Harris Teeter product listings.
- Normalized nutrition data from multiple sources into a single internal format so servings and units stay consistent across retailers.
- Designed the interface around fast repeat entry, keeping the common case of logging a known food to a couple of interactions.
Engineering Trivia
Built a full-stack web app that generates engineering trivia and interview questions live using the Gemini API, rather than pulling from a static question bank. Supports a solo quiz mode, an AI-graded technical interview prep mode, and real-time multiplayer rooms where friends compete on the same AI-generated questions.
Engineering Highlights
- Used structured JSON output from the Gemini API to reliably generate quiz questions, interview prompts, and answer evaluations.
- Built real-time multiplayer rooms with Socket.IO, including live timers, scoring, and leaderboards synced across clients.
- Designed an interview-prep mode where open-ended answers are graded by the AI with a verdict, targeted feedback, and a natural follow-up question.
- Implemented an Express backend serving both REST endpoints (solo/interview) and WebSocket events (multiplayer).
Contact
Get in touch for collaborative projects, lab builds, or internship opportunities in hardware engineering.
Charlotte, NC · Open to relocation