writing self-bio ...
about me
I am a second year undergraduate at Harvey Mudd College, studying Engineering with a focus on robotics. My goal is to build robots which automate repetitive, unsafe, and expensive labor in climate technology, to enable deployment at scale. Currently, I am developing a low-cost CO2 indicator with Dr. Julie Medero and Dr. Lelia Hawkins. Recently, I investigated legged locomotion over a novel, spring-loaded obstacle field with Dr. Feifei Qian.
My experience designing control systems for my high school robotics team sparked my curiosity for how robots navigate complex environments. So in my junior year of high school, I joined the Hybrid Systems Lab under Dr. Nan Wang and Dr. Ricardo Sanfelice, implementing motion planners for systems with hybrid continuous (flowing) and discrete dynamics (collisions). Then, in my senior year engineering class, I was struck by how seamlessly Japan’s piezoelectric walking tiles provided renewable energy in busy urban spaces. This innovation inspired me to build a clean‑energy system of my own: a regenerative dance floor that charged a battery as students jumped.
I'm currently a robotics research intern with the RoboLand Lab at USC, exploring how robots can interact with non-rigid, non-flat terrains. I'm also on the Harvey Mudd RoboSub team, designing AUVs for underwater competition — which means I spend a lot of time thinking about torpedo launchers and hydrophone signal amplification. I am additionally a undergraduate researcher at the Lab for Investigations of Local Air Quality at Mudd, where I've built a motorized, ambient CO2 level indicator, as well as a realtime Firestore data pipeline for various air quality sensors, many running legacy middleware.
I create a lot — newspaper articles for the Muddraker (I love em-dashes), baked goods with odd flavor combinations, WiFi-enabled IOT devices to level up my room, extremely detailed spreadsheet schedules and Notion goal planners, and occasionally funny puns (I make a lot of resistor-related puns. My friends have developed quite the tolerance.)
toolkit
| domain | tools & skills |
|---|---|
| Mechanical | SolidWorks, Fusion 360, Onshape, 3D printing, FEA |
| Electrical | KiCAD, LTSpice, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, circuit design, soldering, PCB layout |
| Software | C++, Python, MATLAB, Java, Linux, LaTeX, motion planning, control systems |
| Manufacturing | Bed mill (DPM SX3P), laser cutter, band saw, FDM printing, CAM toolpathing |
📧 bevxu [at] g [dot] hmc [dot] edu
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