I'm Max and I am currently in my final year of 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 embedded systems.

Some interesting (maybe) things that I've worked on recently:

• 🚀 Hybrid engine ECU - Custom PCB for control and sensing of a hybrid rocket engine (N₂O and ABS). Part of my final year project, also a UC Aerospace club project.
• 🤖 Robocup - Autonomous weight collection robot used in 2025 RoboCup competition.
• 👾 Wacky racers - ENCE461 group project. An embedded system to wirelessly control a racer through head movements from the driver.
• 🚁 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 overall.
• ⚡ 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.
• 🧗‍♂️ 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.
• 💻 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.
• 🚶‍♀️ Step counter - software for a pedometer which tracks the user's step count and distance travelled. Runs on a stm32 nucleo board.
• 🧰 Aluminium structure - design calaculations and CAD model for an aluminium structure designed to fail at a load of 30kg.
• 📡 Bluestone - UC aerospace club project. Rocket flight computer for data collection + GPS.

📫 You can reach me at maxh2815@gmail.com.