ZT

Engineering Profile

Ziang Tan

Electrical & Computer Engineering + Data Science student building embedded systems, robotics workflows, and reliable engineering prototypes.

I am a University of Washington student who enjoys turning technical ideas into working systems. My work spans firmware, sensing, robotics modeling, PCB design, and data-driven problem solving, with a strong focus on debugging, integration, and practical execution.

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  • Seattle, WA
  • Expected graduation: June 2027
  • GPA: 3.75

About

A practical builder with both hardware and data depth.

I am pursuing dual bachelor's degrees in Electrical & Computer Engineering and Applied Mathematics: Data Science at the University of Washington. I am most energized by work that sits between software, hardware, and system-level problem solving.

Across coursework, internships, and club projects, I have built a habit of shipping real technical work: debugging embedded labs, prototyping sensor-based devices, modeling robotic motion, and organizing messy data into usable engineering outputs.

100+ students supported as an Embedded Systems TA
3 engineering areas I actively combine: embedded, robotics, data
4+ hands-on projects featured across firmware, modeling, and sensing

Experience

Teaching, prototyping, and applied engineering work.

Undergraduate Teaching Assistant

University of Washington ยท EE/CSE 474: Embedded Systems

Sep 2025 - Present
  • Support 100+ students in embedded systems labs involving ESP32-S3 programming, I2C, and FreeRTOS scheduling.
  • Hold weekly office hours focused on hardware debugging, firmware structure, and implementation troubleshooting.
  • Assist with grading and course documentation for a large programming-intensive systems course.

Engineering Intern

Shenzhen Volcos Technology Co., Ltd.

Jul 2025 - Sep 2025
  • Developed a wind-speed measurement module integrating humidity and temperature sensors.
  • Prototyped an automated cat care device using motor control and ultrasonic sensing.
  • Designed PCB layouts in Altium Designer and programmed microcontrollers in Keil5.

Engineering Intern (Field Application Engineer)

EMA Yingma Tech Co., Ltd.

Jul 2024 - Sep 2024
  • Tested accelerated graphics cards to evaluate functionality and performance.
  • Identified hardware and software bugs during development and troubleshooting.
  • Researched application markets and explored international buyer opportunities.

Engineering Intern

Syron Intelligent Lock Co., Ltd.

Jul 2022 - Aug 2022
  • Assisted with design and assembly of OEM smart lock systems.
  • Performed functionality and reliability testing on smart lock devices.

Projects

Selected work across embedded systems, robotics, and data science.

Embedded cat care prototype with sensors, display, and breadboard wiring.

Embedded Systems

Autonomous Embedded Cat Care System

Built a real-time embedded prototype on ESP32-S3 with interrupt-driven ultrasonic sensing, hardware timers, buffered sensor logic, and state-machine motor control for automated feeding and cleaning behavior.

  • Used ISR-based event handling and deterministic timing.
  • Reduced race-condition risk with volatile variables and critical sections.
  • Delivered a stable prototype that coordinated sensing and actuation reliably.
Robotic arm stacking wooden blocks during a lab demonstration. Robotic arm sorting colored objects on a tabletop.

Robotics Modeling

Robotic Arm Kinematics and Trajectory Control

Created a Python workflow for 6-DOF manipulator modeling using Denavit-Hartenberg parameters, forward kinematics, numerical inverse kinematics, and trajectory generation for pick-and-place tasks.

  • Implemented SciPy-based optimization for inverse kinematics.
  • Validated motion feasibility across multiple arm configurations.
  • Strengthened skills in robotics control and system modeling.
Line-tracking robot built with custom hardware and 3D-printed chassis.

Hardware Integration

Line-Tracking Robot

Designed and assembled a course robot with Arduino control, custom PCB sensing hardware, photoresistors, motors, and a 3D-printed chassis, then iteratively tuned it through repeated track testing.

  • Integrated custom sensing hardware with control logic.
  • Contributed to calibration, tuning, and full-system optimization.
  • Reached a measured course completion time of 48 seconds.
Mars-style rover platform used for sensor subsystem development.

Sensor Subsystem

Mars Rover Sensor Subsystem

Supported Husky Robotics sensor planning for a Mars-style rover, evaluating environmental sensing options and integration tradeoffs across gas, temperature, humidity, and subsurface measurement goals.

  • Compared sensor specifications, operating ranges, and integration constraints.
  • Connected sensor choices to rover science objectives and feasibility.
  • Contributed to subsystem development and enclosure-oriented robotics work.

Data Pipeline

Seafood Production and Consumption Forecasting

Built a Python data workflow that ingested multi-year CSV datasets, handled incomplete records, generated country-level visualizations, and estimated future production demand using forecasting logic.

  • Structured messy real-world data for downstream analysis.
  • Created country and global forecast outputs.
  • Wrote targeted tests to validate core processing and calculations.

NLP / Analytics

Educational Text Analytics Workflow

Developed Python and Jupyter workflows for preprocessing educational text data, running topic-modeling experiments, and evaluating model quality with accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 metrics.

  • Worked with unstructured datasets and transformation pipelines.
  • Compared machine-generated themes against expert-defined categories.
  • Analyzed how modeling choices affected interpretability and subgroup performance.

Skills

A hybrid toolkit for firmware, prototyping, and analytical work.

Programming

C, C++, Python, Java, SQL

Embedded & Hardware

ESP32, FreeRTOS, I2C, interrupt programming, PCB design, circuit testing, sensor integration

Data & Modeling

Data ingestion, ETL-style transformation, forecasting, topic modeling, clustering, model evaluation

Tools

Altium Designer, Keil5, Jupyter Notebook, Git, Linux, Matplotlib, SolidWorks, AutoCAD

Current Focus

Open to internships and engineering roles where I can build, test, and learn fast.

I am especially interested in embedded systems, robotics, hardware-software integration, controls-adjacent engineering, and technically rigorous roles where debugging and practical execution matter.