STUDENT
A passionate student at Medford Vocational Technical High School in Medford, MA. partaking in the Robotics Team and Engineering Vocational Shop.
Miles Hilliard
DEVELOPER
A budding engineer with a love for problem-solving and design, consistently applying technical skills to real-world projects in robotics, electronics, and programming.
ENGINEER
I am an electrical engineering student with an evergrowing passion for programming, artificial intelligence, and robotic autonomy. As a high school student, I work as the electrical hardware lead to design, create, and test innovative ROVs and profiling floats for the annual MATE ROV Competition.

Don't measure your skills in percentages

Underwater Robotics

Experience with hardware on underwater ROVs and Vertically Profiling Floats along with custom PCB design. Two years of qualified engineering with Sunk Robotics. Capable of designing custom schematics and boards for robotics.

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MCUs & SBCs

Skilled in advanced usage of various makes and models of MCU and SBCs, including ARM SoC and ATMEGA. Knowledge in Libre Computer AML-S905 boards for modular, lightweight, and efficient solutions.

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Front-end & Back-end

Proficient in Python and C++, along with growing skills in JavaScript, CSS, and .NET languages. Various projects, utilizing front-end static pages, back-end APIs, and full-stack developments, both online, offline, and non-networked.

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Renewable Energy

Experimental tests in solar energy for operating powerful computing servers and smaller-scale microcomputers. Familiarity with micro wind turbine systems for residential applications, including installation, distribution, and monitoring.

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Artificial Intelligence

Involvement in multiple artificial intelligence projects, including MATE ROV: NOAA Ocean Exploration Video challenge (Placed 3rd worldwide). Adequate experience with YOLO and SSMD for fast, effective, and efficient object identifying, tracking, and recognition.

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RF, Radios & Antennas

Growing knowledge in radio frequency electronics. Interest in analog & digital communication modes such as CW (morse code), SSTV (slow-scan television) and FT8. A passionate DIY radio enthusiast. A licensed HAM radio operator.

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Professional milestones

Sunk Robotics
2024 - present Electrical Engineering Head

This year, Sunk Robotics aims to place in the MATE ROV World Championship once again, keeping the tradition afloat!

With the use of new hardware, and more advanced technologies, I am reworking many hardware aspects of the robot to increase reliability and maneuverability for the pilot, and operators involved. With the reconstitution of the control board isolation, JONA ROV will be less susceptible to high-frequency EMF radiation, improving the sensitive electronic operation under various loads.

MATE ROV
2024 Software Engineer

'The MATE ROV Competition is excited to partner with NOAA Ocean Exploration again this year to offer up this challenge to students from around the world!'

By training a custom YOLO v8 model on the underwater starfish species known as the Brittle Star, Matty Harris and I were able to successfully achieve more than 90% detection accuracy with various underwater videos showcasing the species.

With a fully functioning artificial Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to be submitted, we placed third overall in the 2024 Ocean Exploration Video Challenge hosted by MATE ROV.

Sunk Robotics
2023 - 2024 Electrical Engineer

Sunk Robotics transferred and re-designed aspects from STEVE ROV to the more modern and robust JONA ROV. Thanks to our devoted team and funding from our sponsors, we were able to achieve first place in the regional competition, and ninth place overall in the MATE ROV World Championship while placing third in terms of robotics.

The custom PCB layouts required additional work and configuring to create a successful, near drop-in replacement, for JONA ROV. The creation of the new JENA Float began in 2023, with a finalized product scoring highest in the MATE ROV World Championship in 2024.

Latest work

HAM Radio License

As of 11/23/2024, I am a registered HAM radio operator. This means I can use technology that nobody has even thought about since WWII.

HAM radio is a dying art, and I beleive it should be revived. The whole concept of communication without internet or networks or cables is fascinating, and still very important. Although HAM radio is now no longer as common as it once was, it can still be a necessity for some. People still rely on it as a form of communication (and entertainment) in less urbanized areas, and more recently, it has had an impact on natural disaster relief.

With growing interests in RF and the world of analog modes, I am learning about various technologies, both analog and digital, including CW (morse code), SSTV (slow-scan television), RTTY, et al.

73,

KC1VTJ

Sunk Robotics

Sunk Robotics, a high school, student run, robotics team that operates out of Medford Vocational Technical High School, in Medford, Massachusetts.

'Since our founding in November of 2021, Sunk Robotics has developed multiple underwater engineering solutions. Our current lineup includes: STEVE ROV, JENA Float, and our new vehicle for the 2024 season, JONA ROV.'

2022 NE MATE ROV Regional Champions, 2023 NE MATE ROV Regional Champions, 2024 NE MATE ROV Regional Champions, 2022 NE MATE ROV Regional Champions, MATE ROV World Championship - Long Beach, California, MATE ROV World Championship - Longmont, Colorado

Github Package Manager (GHPM)

'GHPM was developed to address various challenges encountered by GitHub users. We achieve this by focusing on the client side of the GitHub interface. Instead of using the standard git clone command, we leverage the Git framework to ensure a standardized and efficient repository download process. Upon successfully obtaining the repository, our system offers invaluable support for building and configuring it through our integrated Dependency Manager (DM) and, most notably, our Entry Point Detection (EPD) feature.'

Between mid 2022 and to late 2023, I helped develop and test the Microsoft Windows side of the software, to ensure compatible and reliable usage across platforms.

Much of the updating software was rewritten to be more efficient and documented during this time, making it easier for future development and overall user experience.

WordBot

Utilizing advanced websocket and SocketIO communication, WordBot was created for multiplayer competitions on the popular word game, BombParty, by Sparklin Labs (JKLM.FUN). With consistent improvements being made, WordBot was dubbed an 'Official JKLM Bot.'

As a side-mission, WordBot was developed to be run efficiently on SBCs that can be easily powered strictly from solar energy by utilizing three 100W solar panels. With this, WordBot was the first carbon-neutral bot to be hosted with JKLM.FUN infrastructure.

With more than 3 complete overhauls in terms of software and hardware, WordBot has been constantly improving- with new and more advanced hardware and optimized software.

Digits of Pi

As a fun project, I decided to create a simple algorithm to calculate any amount of pi to the Nth digit. By running this script on a small VPS for multiple weeks, many digits of Pi were generated and recorded. Initially with over 5 million digits of pi calculated, the calculations were saved. Due to an unforeseen file corruption error, only 3 million digits were saved properly. By this time, I decided to end the project here.

During the calculation process, anybody could watch the digits being generated live by viewing the dedicated website. At this point, it serves as an archive and reference point for the 3 million digits of pi.

Downloadable versions of one, two, and three million digits are available on GitHub and on the website.