Maxwell Li

Mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo. Controls and embedded systems.

Titan: autonomous quadcopter
A custom 50 cm frame, designed in Fusion 360 and 3D printed. It's on its 6th iteration.
See the build
VEX V5: High Stakes season
Robot subsystems designed in Inventor and machined over a 10-month build season. 14 competition awards.
See the build
VEX V5: Over Under season
PID speed control, odometry and pure pursuit path tracking in PROS. VEX World Championship Build Award.
See the build
Phaethon: ground-effect vehicle (ekranoplan)
Draws 45 W at 600 g: 63% less power per kilogram than the quadcopter.
See the build

Designed, built, programmed
and tested.

The builds

A VEX World Championship Build Award and a top-100 finish out of more than 40,000 teams in Over Under, 14 competition awards in High Stakes, and two aircraft built solo.

Titan: autonomous quadcopter

Aug 2026 to present · Solo build

Follows objects on its own: YOLOv8 on a Raspberry Pi 5, talking to the flight controller over MAVLink.

Read the build

About me

I'm Maxwell, a mechatronics engineering student at the University of Waterloo. I work on controls and embedded systems, and most of what I know I learned by building machines that move.

That means VEX robots across two seasons, a quadcopter that finds and follows objects on its own, and a foam ground-effect vehicle I built to see how much power flying low really saves.

Away from the workbench I travel, hike, game, and play instruments.