I'm Max and I am currently pursuing a Mechatronics Engineering degree at the University of Canterbury. I love to learn and I'm passionate about all aspects of STEM.
🏂 When I'm not working on projects, you can find me rock climbing, mountain biking or snowboarding.
👨💻 My biggest current tech-related interest is electronics and software for microcontrollers and other embedded systems.
🤖 Some interesting (maybe) things that I've worked on recently:
- 🚁 RC helicopter avionics - a flight controller pcb (and software) for a mini coaxial helicopter. The controller contains a radio and can communicate wirelessly.
- 🏎 Line following robot - a 2-wheeled robot which uses infrared sensors and a PID controller to follow a line. This robot won second place in the final race.
- ⚡ Solar car power electronics - this circuit is an efficient buck converter that transfers power from a solar panel to a DC motor. There is a feedback loop which adjusts the converter duty cycle to ensure the solar panel is always operating at the maximum power point.
- 🚶♀️ Step counter - software for a pedometer which tracks the user's step count and distance travelled. Runs on a stm32 nucleo board.
- 🚥 rgb-matrix - this is a PCB that drives a 8x8 matrix of RGB LED's. The repository also contains code for communicating with and controlling the outputs on the PCB.
- ℹ WASMSerialTerminal - every once in a while I need to communicate with devices that communicate over RS232. I made this webapp to achive this, so I can just open a browser instead of needing to download some desktop app like teraterm.
- 🔒 Door lock - this is an electromechanical door lock powered by an esp32 and a couple of servos. A touchscreen on the front of the door allows users to input a password before the door unlocks. It employs gears and a creative mechanism to prevent the lock from getting jammed.
- 🧗♂️ Fake kilter board - a Kilter board is a climbing wall with light up holds. It communicates with an official mobile app through bluetooth (specifically BLE). I wanted to figure out how it works so I could send my own commands to it with my own software. After alot of reverse engineering, I uncovered enough details that I was able to make my own fake climbing wall using a microcontroller with built-in bluetooth capabilities. I could then use this fake wall to test other software intended for controlling a real one.
📫 You can reach me at maxh2815@gmail.com.