Hardware

Half-Life Gravity Gun

  • Recreated a device from the video game "Half-Life" that has only ever been seen in science fiction.
  • Used operational amplifiers, half h-bridge motor drivers, hall sensors, buck converters, a 6S LiPo battery, and a homemade electromagnet to design, build, and debug a circuit that levitates a magnetic object with only analog electronics.
  • Created a 3D printed assembly in SOLIDWORKS with adjustable arms for levitation, an enclosure for the 6S LiPo battery, and awesome aesthetic LEDs.

Tracking Antenna Controller PCBA

  • Designed the schematic and PCB to control the tracking antenna that follows the drone for the Waterloo Aerial Robotics Group to maximize RF communication range.
  • Based on a Seeduino MCU
  • Has servo outputs with overcurrent protection
  • Has I2C and UART GPS output connectors with the Pixhawk standard
  • Has a LDO+buck regulator circuit to regulate the voltage of 3s,4s,5s or 6s LiPo batteries. 
  • Assembled with a reflow oven
  • Debugged a QFN package IC with a heat gun and flux to reflow components.
  • Used an oscilloscope and DMM to validate the operations of the board after performing continuity/short testing. 

Zero Pilot Flight Interface Board

  • Designed the schematic and PCB for an sensor interface board in Altium for the Waterloo Aerial Robotics Group.
  • This board connects to a main STM32 board and provides standard connectors and sensors.
  • Allows the firmware team to develop for flight sensors and equipment all on one board.
  • Breaks out to provide standard SPI, UART, USART, I2C, and GPIO connectors.
  • Includes an IMU, barometer, and magnetometer along with the supporting circuitry.
  • Designed for optimal EMI, loop inductance, etc.
  • Designed to be configurable using 0 ohm resistors. 

Fallout Power Armor Helmet

  •  Created a real life working version of the power armor helmet from the video game Fallout for Hacksmith Industries (15M+ YouTube subscribers)
  • Has an augmented reality heads up display that shows suit stats, overlays different vision modes, shows vitals, and has built in tool readings. 
  • Includes heat vision, vision, night vision, telescopic vision, a pneumatically opening mask, a voice changer, a respirator that can run on two different air supplies/filters and a flood light (custom PCB).
  • Uses OpenCV, Python, Linux GStreamer, a custom PCB, RevPi PLC, Nvidia Jetson, and 3D printing.

LDO Voltage Regulator Board

  • Designed an LDO voltage regulator PCB and schematic in Altium, minimizing size and maintaining design practices.
  • Designed as part of the Waterloo Aerial Robotics Group

Professor Puddles

  • Placed 1st overall at the Hack the 6ix hackathon.
  • Won a prize valued $320
  • 219 participants, over 50 teams.
  • Uses OpenCV to detect and notify the user when they have bad posture. 
  • If you ignore the notifications, the duck starts yelling and quacking at you. 
  • He really does not like it if you ignore his warnings, and he will physically spit at you if you don't fix your posture. 
  • Communicates wirelessly with a Raspberry Pi via Python Sockets to control a servo motor.

DevPost: Professor Puddles | Devpost
GitHub Repository: lucasreljic/Professor-Puddles: Our project for hack the 6ix. (github.com)

PiCasso - Hack the North 2022.

  • Physically draws where the user is looking on the paper (no physical human interaction).
  • Uses the AdHawk MindLink glasses and their API for eye tracking.
  • Created in only 36 hours during Hack the North 2022.
  • Had our project featured on the Hack the North 2023 website.
  • I developed a stronger knowledge for working with APIs. 
  • Required careful consideration to prevent unwanted eye movements from registering in the code. 

Razer Cup

  • Iterated on from grades 10-11.
  • Wirelessly connects to my computer via Raspberry Pi over the internet.
  • LED colour is synced to my keyboard and mouse while reacting to events in video games. 
  • Iteration 1 used SSH for connection.
  • Iteration 2 used sockets in python and had much less delay.
  • Iteration 3 was a larger overhaul, described below.

Razer Cup V3

  • Similar to previous versions but has 4, separately controlled LEDs rather than one. 
  • I designed a custom circuit to allow multiplexing for 12 led pins with only 4 GPIO pins that evades the shortfalls of traditional multiplexing when some channels use common ground.
  • This wire limitation created many technical barriers for me to solve.
  • I wrote a fully custom control system in python that has the benefits of both multiplexing and PWM (which could not operate correctly together).

P.A.B.L.O. (Pong Assistant Beats Losers Only) - MakeUofT 2023

  • Placed 3rd overall at UofT's MakeUofT hackathon winning a prize valued at $350.
  • Created in 24 hours.
  • Throws you a ping pong ball when you need it.
  • Uses OpenCV to track where your hand is and throws the ball directly at it.
  • Hardware controlled via Arduino and C++. 

Guitar Playing Robot

  • This robot reads music from a colour strip and then plays the music on the guitar. 
  • I thought out of the box and came up with many major ideas such the camshaft fretting mechanism. 
  • The main control system is written in RobotC. 
  • There is an additional system that converts any digital song into coloured squares for the robot to read. More details on this are in the software section. 

Mindosaur

  • Created a robo-dinosaur that reacts to your emotions and listens to Spotify with you, giving custom song recommendations to fit your mood.
  • Uses an OpenBCI ECG headpiece to detect your emotions.
  • Uses an Arduino to manipulate a custom LCD/servo controlled face to emote with the same mood as you. 
  • Created for DeltaHacksX.

Haul-E - Hack the North 2023

  • Created in 36 hours during Hack the North 2023
  • Uses eye tracking glasses to direct a path following robot to where you look so it can carry heavy items or just bring you a drink :) 
  • Uses sensor fusion from the eye tracking data and a gyroscope to generate absolute world space points from relative data, providing the glasses with spatial computing capability. 
  • Developed with Python, the AdHawk API, an ESP32, motor controllers, and C++.

NassarBot

  • Designed in a team of four as part of my first "Tron Days" event at the University of Waterloo.
  • Students were tasked to build a robot that can carefully place bones in various locations given limited parts and motors.
  • Our robot got a near perfect score and quickly became a favorite of the profs, TAs, and other students.
  • We received the Prof's Choice award for our robot.

Remote Fire Mechanism

  • Fires the toy gun after a lever is hit
  • Used as part of my physics project where I made a Rube Goldberg machine.
  • LED indicates lever has been pulled and activates delay before firing.

My First Circuit - Bomb Defusal Training

  • Disconnecting the right wire makes the yellow LED turn green and the wrong wires make it turn red (the LED has been taken off in the photo to be reused).
  • I was about 11.
  • Everything went quite well and it worked on the first try.
  • This is what sparked my adventure into a world of electronics beyond just Lego robotics. 

Hands-Free Eating Device

  • While this project failed, I thought I would include it as I learned a lot.
  • I made this shortly after the project above.
  • Designed to put cereal into my mouth with the press of a homemade pedal.
  • The motor didn’t end up turning correctly and I oversaw many design flaws.
  • This was one of my first failed projects, likely due to my overconfidence of the previous success.
  • This learning experience minimized future failures as I now have a more proven method of planning and testing.

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