i think robots are cool
~ $ whoami
kesia fernandes — B.S. Robotics Eng + Data Science, UCR '28
~ $ cat interests.txt
autonomous systems, computer vision, embedded systems, hardware-software integration
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I’m a robotics engineering student at UC Riverside with a minor in Data Science. I’m interested in intelligent systems and enjoy building software that brings machines to life in the real world.
Some of my experience includes building a vision-guided robotic arm using YOLOv8 and OpenCV, as well as implementing autonomous navigation behaviors in ROS2 simulations. Right now I’m focused on learning the fundamentals of ROS2 and improving my Python skills by playing around in Gazebo.
Outside of robotics, I enjoy playing FPS games, reading manga, hiking, and doing anything that lets me indulge my creativity. I love to make stuff!!!!!
Led a 4-person team to build a distributed hazard-detection system across two Jetson Nanos. Integrated Depth Anything V2 with YOLOv8n for monocular distance estimation and built a 30 FPS pipeline with TTS output and priority-queue deduplication.
Built and deployed a vision-guided robotic arm using YOLOv8 and OpenCV for real-time object detection and physical manipulation. Collaborated with mechanical and electrical engineers on CAD design and hardware integration.
Implemented wall-following and trajectory generation behaviors for a simulated robot using ROS2 nodes, topics, and publishers/subscribers in a Linux environment. Building familiarity with autonomous navigation stacks and sensor integration.
Architected a C++ mystery game using OOP and SOLID principles. Validated correctness and eliminated memory leaks using GoogleTest and Valgrind.
open to internships, research, and interesting side projects.
if you're working on something cool, let me know!