University of Waterloo — Electrical Engineering (Co-op)

Aayan Rahman

“Building useful things with electrons & code.”

Embedded systems, FPGAs, and web tools that actually ship.

PCB circuit board with electronic components and circuit traces

About自己紹介

I’m an Electrical Engineering student at the University of Waterloo. I recently wrapped up my first co-op at Gravity RV, where I wrote BLE firmware in C for ESP32s, built a React Native app for wireless motor control, and got hands-on with soldering, wiring harnesses, and plasma cutting.

Outside of work, I design PCBs in Altium and KiCad for Waterloo Formula Electric and Rocketry. I’m drawn to the space where software meets the physical world the stuff that can actually break in satisfying ways.

Education学歴

University of Waterloo

Waterloo, ON

BASc, Electrical Engineering (Co-op)

Sept 2025 — Apr 2030

White Oaks Secondary School

Oakville, ON

International Baccalaureate Diploma

Sept 2023 — May 2025

Experience経験

Co-op · Current

Gravity RV

R&D Software & Electrical Engineering Intern · Ontario, CA

Jan 2026 – Present

Shipping production embedded firmware, BLE wireless control, React Native mobile apps, and hands on electrical fabrication for an active recreation vehicle R&D program. Moving fluently across the full stack, from ESP32 C firmware to mobile UI to high current harness work on the bench, and owning real artifacts in every layer.

React Native BLE App

Mobile

Shipped a cross-platform iOS and Android app that drives motor hardware wirelessly over BLE. Owned the entire comms layer: characteristic discovery, command framing, live status telemetry, and graceful error recovery.

React NativeBLETypeScript

ESP32 development board with BLE antenna

ESP32 BLE Firmware

Firmware

Wrote embedded C firmware for the ESP32 covering BLE peripheral setup, GATT callbacks, input validation, and auto reconnect. Engineered a bidirectional heartbeat so the phone and ESP32 actively watch each other and trigger a safe shutdown the instant either side drops.

Embedded CESP32BLE GATT

Oscilloscope probe on motor controller PCB during bench testing

Motor Controller Reverse Engineering

Electrical

Reverse engineered existing motor driver boards with an oscilloscope and multimeter, tracing signal paths to pinpoint faults and document the control protocol for future hardware revisions.

OscilloscopeSignal TracingBench Testing

Close-up of high-current connector being soldered during harness assembly

Soldering & Harness Work

Fabrication

Built high current wire harnesses from scratch and soldered power connectors rated for real load. Owned prototype bring up end to end: flashing firmware, validating circuits on the bench, and iterating until the build was production ready.

High-current SolderingWire HarnessReflashing

Plasma Cutting

Fabrication

Picked up plasma cutting on the floor and ran the machine myself to fabricate structural brackets and custom metal parts for active prototype builds.

Plasma CutterMetal Fabrication

Mechanical CAD model for plasma cutting and customer quoting at Gravity RV

CAD Work

Design

Executed mechanical CAD modeling and prepared designs for plasma cutter production. Developed precise parts and assemblies to generate accurate technical quotes for customer projects.

MCADPlasma CuttingQuoting

Dashboard or data flow diagram for Zoho and Firebase integration

Zoho + Firebase Integration

Backend

Built backend sync scripts that pipe Zoho CRM data straight into Firebase in real time. Eliminated manual data entry entirely and gave the team a single source of truth for customer records.

FirebaseZohoJavaScript

Previously

Code Ninjas — Instructor (Sensei)

Oakville, ON

Sep 2024 – Aug 2025

• Taught JavaScript and C# (Unity) to 50+ students, scaling lessons from absolute beginner syntax up to full game development projects.

• Ran summer camps covering Roblox (Lua), Minecraft modding, and robotics, with every session built around shipping a real project by the end of the week.

• Introduced kids aged 4 to 7 to computational thinking and basic circuit logic through hands on activities they could actually understand and enjoy.

• Owned daily operations including student onboarding, equipment readiness, and live troubleshooting so classes always ran on time.

Brain Stimuli Project — University of Toronto — Full Stack Developer

Toronto, ON

Oct 2024 – Feb 2025

• Built a full stack research platform that integrated AI emotion models into a React and MongoDB dashboard used by active neuroscience researchers.

• Designed RESTful APIs and real time data pipelines to visualize live sentiment signals with consistent accuracy.

• Partnered directly with researchers to shape the UI around real experiment workflows, supporting models that hit 90%+ accuracy.

HealthBot.ca — Co-Founder & Backend Engineer

Remote

May 2024 – May 2025

• Co founded a PHIPA compliant AI health assistant on Google Cloud and grew it to 100+ active users.

• Engineered the backend with role based access control and full CI/CD pipelines, cutting deploy time from 30 minutes down to under 5.

• Earned local media coverage for the project's impact on community health access.

Hackathons Canada — Logistics Director

Remote

Jul 2024 – Feb 2025

• Directed logistics for a 330+ participant university hackathon hosted at Laurier, owning execution from venue to closing ceremony.

• Closed over $15,000 in sponsorships and built direct partnerships with top tier tech companies.

• Rebuilt team coordination in Notion, lifting task throughput by 25% across the organizing team.

Projectsプロジェクト

Waterloo Electrathon — Electric Race Car Power Systems

Oct 2024 – May 2025

Race car on track at competition — War Rig — Race Day

LTspiceBLDC Motor AnalysisBattery SystemsWelding

What

Led electrical design for a single-seat electric race car competing in the Waterloo Electrathon; owned motor selection, battery pack design, wiring diagram, and engineering documentation.

How

Torque–speed analysis to select optimal 2.5 kW BLDC motor
Designed 12 V / 35 Ah SLA battery pack with 100 A ANL fuse sized to surge-current margins
Authored full wiring diagram, BOM, and failure-mode checklist
Maintained detailed CAD design-change logbook for the team
Learned to weld; hands-on chassis fabrication and riveting

Results

+15 min endurance per charge over baseline motor selection
50 A peak current margin maintained across all operating conditions
Team won the Dennis Weishar Engineering Design Award

Demo GitHub

Waterloo Rocketry — EGSE Redesign

2025 – Present

KiCad schematic showing dual converter redesign for EGSE — EGSE power supply redesign — KiCad schematic

KiCadPower SystemsECADBOM Optimization

What

Redesigned the Electrical Ground Support Equipment power supply to cut cost without sacrificing output, replacing a single expensive converter with dual off-the-shelf modules delivering 12 V / 30 A.

How

Built custom KiCad component footprints for both replacement modules
Resized CB1 and selected a 30 A master fuse matched to the new current budget
Updated full ECAD schematic and layout; changes currently under team review

Results

65% BOM cost reduction on the power supply subsystem
Maintained original 12 V / 30 A output spec with improved thermal headroom

Waterloo Formula Electric — 12 V → 16 V Boost Converter PCB

2025

Altium 365 two-layer boost converter PCB layout — Boost converter layout — Altium 365

Altium DesignerPower ElectronicsTI TPS43061EMI

What

Designed a two-layer synchronous boost converter PCB in Altium 365 to step up the 12 V low-voltage bus to 16 V for the Formula SAE-E car's auxiliary systems.

How

Selected TI TPS43061 synchronous boost controller; sized inductors and caps for 16 V output
Added current sensing with overcurrent protection and 85 °C thermal shutdown via NTC
PMOS/NMOS surge safeguards on input and output rails
Hot-loop routing minimized switching node area for reduced EMI

Results

~25% EMI reduction vs. initial layout iteration
Full two-layer Altium 365 layout complete; undergoing design review

NFC Business Card — Manufactured PCB

2025

NFC business card PCB front face — Manufactured PCB (matte finish)

EasyEDANFC AntennaJLCPCBPCB Manufacturing

What

Designed and manufactured a two-layer PCB business card with an onboard NFC antenna trace that launches my portfolio on any NFC-enabled phone — no app required.

How