Design Projects
Eight team-based design projects across four years at McMaster — from a wind-turbine blade designed for an Engineers Without Borders scenario to pacemaker firmware built with Simulink. Fuller write-ups, in-progress detail, and photos live in the Notion workspace →
Pacemaker Firmware
Built firmware for a pacemaker: a pre-built microprocessor kit paired with a virtual heart that visualizes output voltage. Programmed the microprocessor through Simulink and MATLAB's visual, model-based SDK across two milestone demo interviews, on the Simulink-toolchain sub-team (course split teams by toolchain: DCM vs. Simulink).
3D Room-Mapping Device
Programmed a Texas Instruments MSP432E401Y Launchpad (32-bit ARM Cortex-M4F, 256KB RAM) paired with a Velleman VMA401 stepper motor and an ST VL53L1X time-of-flight sensor, spinning and measuring distance to build a 3D map of a room or hallway. Full bill of materials, with sensor fusion driving the physical output. Built in Assembly and C over I2C/serial/UART/GPIO/Ethernet, flashed via Keil.
Revenge of the Recycling System
Simulated recycling-sorting system: a robotic arm, mover, and hopper sort waste by material, using weight and composition measurements to classify items, then navigate via floor colour-lines and RGB sensors to the correct bin. Wrote the classification, sorting, and navigation logic in Python on Raspberry Pi hardware (QuanserLabs robotics platform) as part of the programming sub-team.
Power in Community
Open-ended brief for a client living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective-tissue disorder. Designed a 6-degree-of-freedom assistive kitchen device enabling knife-based cutting with minimal muscle strain, simulated in Autodesk Inventor, working within the real client's accessibility constraints throughout.
Bus-Stop Indicator System
Financial feasibility analysis of a bus-stop indicator system for the Hamilton Street Railway (HSR), aimed at cutting rider uncertainty and growing ridership. Built a Net Value Function (HSR revenue, carbon-tax savings, and route-optimization savings, minus labour, maintenance, infrastructure, production, and installation costs), a full NPV/value-flow analysis, a sensitivity analysis identifying infrastructure cost as the dominant model driver, an Excel-Solver optimization pass, and a risk matrix. Individually led the LED display-lighting analysis: manufacturing cost, complexity, and aging.
Automated Recycling Plant
Designed an automated recycling plant for McMaster's John Hodgins Engineering Building (Rooms 109/109A), built to run unattended on weekends, process a full week's recycling, double as an educational space during class hours, and hold up for 10+ years. Assessed against the PERSEID framework (Performance, Socio-Cultural, Regulatory, Environmental, and additional categories) to gauge community and environmental impact on Hamilton specifically.
Renewable Technology Challenge
Designed a wind turbine blade for an Engineers Without Borders (EWB) humanitarian-aid scenario: a rural Guatemalan village that needed low-maintenance, low-cost electricity generation from locally sourced materials. Modeled and iterated the blade geometry in Autodesk Inventor across the two-term studio.
Automated Sterilization System
Designed an automated surgical-equipment sterilization system for a healthcare facility. Led design of the tool enclosure holding medical instruments before sterilization, engineered to fit inside the sterilizer's existing container dimensions (new equipment purchases were off the table) and withstand the weight and handling of the robotic arm moving it.
Coursework
Coursework from Level II through Level V. The eight team-based design-project courses above (COMPENG 2DX3, ENGINEER 2PX3, SFWRENG 3K04, and ENGINEER 3PX3 among the Level II–V entries below) are detailed as cards above — table rows link back up to them.
| Course | Title | Level | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| ELECENG 2CI4 | Intro to Electrical Engineering | II | Circuit resistance/voltage/current modeling; Analog Discovery Kit 2 labs |
| ELECENG 2CF3 | Circuits and Waves | II | Op-amps, filters, Bode plots, transfer functions; LTSpice + Excel simulation |
| COMPENG 2DI4 | Logic Design | II | Combinational logic, Boolean algebra, FPGAs; built a T-flip-flop counter/adder light sequencer on an Altera PLD |
| COMPENG 2SH4 | Principles of Programming | II | C and C++ — pointers and memory, then OOP (classes, inheritance) |
| COMPENG 2SI3 | Data Structures & Algorithms | II | Sorting algorithms, efficiency/complexity analysis in C/C++ |
| COMPENG 2DX3 | Microprocessor Systems Project (design project, team of 2) | II | 3D room-mapping device — see card above ↑ |
| ENGINEER 2PX3 | Communications and Social Impacts (design studio) | II | Automated recycling plant — see card above ↑ |
| ELECENG 2EI4 | Electronic Devices and Circuits I | II | Diodes, transistors, op-amps, capacitors; self-directed labs |
| COMPENG 3SM4 | Algorithm Design & Analysis | III | Java — hash maps, red-black trees, graphs, greedy & dynamic-programming algorithms |
| SFWRENG 3SH3 | Operating Systems | III | OS structure, memory optimization, multithreading; Linux self-managed via VirtualBox |
| SFWRENG 3K04 | Software Development (design project, team of 4) | III | Pacemaker firmware — see card above ↑ |
| ENGINEER 3PX3 | Engineering Economics (design studio) | III | HSR bus-stop indicator system — see card above ↑ |
| ELECENG 3TP3 | Signals & Systems | III | Complex variables, Fourier/Laplace transforms, discrete-time systems |
| ELECENG 3TQ3 | Advanced Probability and Random Processes | III | Probability theory, random variables/processes, correlation/density functions |
| COMPENG 3DQ5 | Digital Systems Design | IV | HDL modeling, simulation, synthesis, and verification; FPGA/programmable-device implementation |
| COMPENG 3DY4 | Computer Systems Integration Project (design studio) | IV | Small-group computer engineering design & implementation project |
| ELECENG 3CL4 | Introduction to Control Systems | IV | State-space modeling, linearization, stability, control design |
| ELECENG 3EJ4 | Electronic Devices and Circuits II | IV | Multistage amplifiers, oscillators, data converters, feedback/stability |
| ELECENG 3TR4 | Communication Systems | IV | AM/PM/FM modulation, digital modulation, noise performance |
| COMPENG 4DM4 | Computer Architecture | V | ISA design, pipelining, instruction-level parallelism, memory hierarchies, multiprocessor structures |
| COMPENG 4DS4 | Embedded Systems | V | Embedded processor architectures, SOC organization, HW/SW co-design and co-verification |
| ELECENG 4OI6 A/B | Capstone Design Project (in progress) | V | Two-term, final-year capstone |
Leadership & Extracurricular — GDG McMaster, DeGroote Finance and Investment Council, McMaster Formula Electric, and AWS Student Builder Groups McMaster.
View leadership & extracurricular →