Max PachecoMini Class Projects
Here are some projects that I like that I did in college as class projects.
Chicken Run
Quick class mapping challenge to identify and track the trajectory of several chickens from a video taken from our professor on campus. First, for the mapping/localization part, I tried to directly apply the ORB-SLAM algorithm, but it did not give good results because the video was very unstable, and the camera’s intrinsics were unknown; so using computer vision, I implemented my own algorithm:
I started by detecting strong line features in each frame using Canny edge detection followed by a Hough Transform. These lines were clustered into horizontal and vertical groups to form a grid, which I tracked over time by aligning it with the grid from previous frames. This gave me a stable, persistent reference frame.
On top of that, I used a custom-trained YOLOv8 model to detect the chickens in each frame. For each detection, I computed the midpoint of the bounding box and mapped it to the closest region of the dynamic grid, estimating their real-world position relative to the scene.
Follower Drone
For this quick class mini-project I interfaced (in Python) the DJI’s Tello mini drone, and used its camera to follow and go through an obstacle on our school’s Multi-Robot Systems Laboratory.
Cable driven leg mechanism
Quick class mini-project assignment where I designed and 3D printed a leg mechanism inspired in MABEL from the University of Michigan.
System Validation and Valve Monitoring Project using an STM32 (June, 2023)
Group class project for the “System-on-Chip Design” class using a NUCLEO-STM32 board with a FreeRTOS implementation. Valve pressure and flow data from sensors was transmitted via UART to another device for display, and valve opening and closing with relays and timers.
GUI for the management of the products and inventory of a business in Veracruz, México (2021)
High School IB Computer Science Higher Level project using object-oriented programming in Java.