Engineering Beyond the Classroom
Underwater Robotics
Lead electrical engineering for a competitive MATE ROV team, designing custom PCBs and embedded systems and integrating hardware and software for underwater vehicles. Team experience includes regional wins and international championship competition.
Learn more...
Embedded Systems & Electronics Engineering
Build analog electronics circuits including oscillators and logic for ham radio. PCBs for microcontrollers and single-board computers, including custom firmware, sensor interfaces, and hardware-software integration for applied robotics projects.
Learn more...
Autonomous Systems & Perception
Work on autonomous vehicle systems using LiDAR, SLAM, and computer vision (YOLOv11) to support environmental perception, mapping, and localization. MVTHS is developing a self-driving Robo-Taxi with a donated Ford Think! Neighbor and LiDAR donated by VECNA Robotics
Learn more...
Programming & Systems Integration
Use Python and C/C++ to connect software with physical systems, troubleshoot complex behavior, and develop tools for embedded and robotics projects.
Learn more...
Amateur Radio & Communications
Licensed amateur radio operator exploring RF systems, antennas, and analog and digital communication modes, with practical interests in field operation and radio-based data links.
Learn more...
Renewable Energy Projects
Explore small-scale solar and wind energy systems, investigating how generation, power electronics, and efficiency affect practical embedded and electronics applications.
Learn more...
Professional milestones
Company lead for a competitive MATE ROV team, coordinating electronics development, system integration, and troubleshooting for an underwater remotely operated vehicle.
Design and develop complex custom PCBs and embedded systems for JONA ROV, focusing on reliable hardware integration, electromagnetic interference isolation, and consistent operation under demanding power loads. Work across hardware and software to improve system reliability and pilot control.
Develop perception and navigation capabilities for an autonomous golf cart using LiDAR, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and computer vision.
Work on integrating sensor data and perception software to support environmental mapping, localization, and autonomous navigation in real-world environments.
Developed a custom YOLOv8 object-detection model with Matty Harris to identify brittle stars in underwater video footage, training and evaluating the model on videos captured in varied underwater conditions.
Achieved over 90% detection accuracy and placed 3rd overall in the 2024 Ocean Exploration Video Challenge, applying computer vision and machine learning to marine science and underwater exploration.
Helped transition Sunk Robotics from STEVE ROV to JONA ROV, redesigning and adapting electrical hardware for a more modern vehicle. Developed custom PCB layouts and replacement electronics to integrate updated systems with existing hardware.
Contributed to a vehicle that placed 1st at the regional competition, 9th overall at the MATE ROV World Championship, and 3rd in the robotics category. Also contributed to the development of JENA Float, a custom buoyancy component that received top marks at the 2024 World Championship.
Past projects
(2026) scanlan
Scanlan is a lightweight CLI tool for discovering devices on your local network.
Unlike nmap, it requires zero arguments and zero configuration. Just run scanlan and get a clean table of every device on your subnet, complete with hostnames, MAC addresses, and vendor names.
Written in pure Python with no dependencies, it's available on PyPI and works across Linux, macOS, and Windows.
(2025) PressPost
Introducing, the World's Simplest Blog where you can share your anything!
With the bare-minimum configuration, anyone (yes anybody) can get your own blog site up and running within 30 seconds. Give it a try today, regardless of your technical abilities.
No email, no signup headaches. Just write and Press Post!
(2025) The Neural Times
The Neural Times is a website that utilizes AI to post satirical renditions of current events from global news sources.
By utilizing a locally-run LLM (via ollama), the AI creates a satirical spin-off of the original article and comes up with a cover image prompt. This prompt is then fed into a Stable Diffusion model (also running locally) which in turn generates the cover art for the article. After this, everything is pushed to GitHub and available live via the Vercel page.
This project was done not only to see how funny AI can be, but to also observe potential political biases various LLM models may have.
(2025) URL Shortener
An ultra-simple URL shortener designed from scratch with no bells-and-whistles.
The service is serverless running with Vercel infrastructure, and utilizes a Redis DB to handle all memory requirements efficiently.
it Provides a generous API that is documented and easy to implement into any of your own programming projects, all whilst remaining free.
(2024) OpenWebRX+ WebSDR
I built OpenWebRX+ from source on my Raspberry Zero 2W in hopes of making a local, power efficient, compact, (portable?) web-sdr to share the local airwaves with my friends.
It runs with a simple USB power adapter, but I plan on making it solar powered in the near future.
The actual heavy-lifting is done by the RTL-SDR v3. It is capable of receiving a wide range of frequencies, and I have set up an appropriate list of ranges on the software to support almost any kind of usage.
(2024) CW (Morse Code) tools
Some simple CW tools to help get you into the relm of morse code.
All tools run with javascript on the front end, and involve no backend server processing whatsoever.
(2024) Count API
CountAPI.xyz is no longer with us unfortunately. I, for one, heavily relied on this API and it functionality in various projects. After some research, I found that there was no ideal alternative. Most cost more than I was willing to pay, so I set out to create my own. For free!
countapi.mileshilliard.com is my attempt at a relative-replica of the OG countapi.xyz. By reading the documentation and formatting of how the interface and endpoints functioned, I recreated my own using a Redis databse and a Vercel serverless script. Although performance may not quite match the original countapi, the minor dip shouldn't be noticeable in everyday applications.
I intend this API to be free indefinitely. If it gains any traction, I will most likely need to upgrade to a different redis database, but until then, enjoy!
All documentation can be found on the homepage of the API (link below) and includes formatted examples to get you started in any programming language.
(2024) Amateur Radio Callsign Lookup
Look up anybody's callsign to find the registered name, location, expiration, class rank, or FRN behind it!
Written with a serverless backend, the lookups are fast and efficient- two things the FCC's website is incapable of. The interface is clean and easy to use, with only one input required to create a search.
(2024) HAM Radio License
As of 11/23/2024, I am a registered HAM radio operator.
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 de KC1VTJ
(2023) 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
(2023) 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.
(2022) 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 from solar energy by utilizing three 100W solar panels.
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.
(2022) Digits of Pi
As a fun project and to learn more about Python, I decided to create a simple algorithm to calculate any amount of pi to the Nth digit. The code was run on a small VPS for multiple weeks.