> from concept to reality
Hi, I'm Ahmad Ali.
I build intelligent robots, AI-powered products, and educational technology that solve real-world problems.
I take ideas from a blank page all the way to working products — combining hardware, software, and artificial intelligence into experiences people genuinely enjoy using.
Currently Building
SaySpark — Voice-First Robotics for Kids
A robot that teaches kids to think like engineers. Talk to Spark Mini and it answers out loud while it drives, measures, sees, and solves mazes — powered by a real AI tutor. The free 3D simulator and tutor are live now.
From Blank Page to Working Product
Every project here started as an observation of a real-world problem and became a working prototype through CAD, electronics, firmware, software, and relentless iteration.
A Decade of Competing
44 competitions and conferences — engineering floors, hackathon weekends, and pitch stages.
## Engineering & Science
## Pitches & Entrepreneurship
## The Wall
- 1st Place + Global Nomination — Meteor Madness (2025)
- 3rd Place — Comfire (2023)
- Best Demo Award — autonomous drone, PIMRC 2023
- Poster presenter — EV battery research, EPEC 2025
- 2× Bronze · 1× Silver medals
- $10k UOttawa scholarship
- Four national finals appearances
- Accumulator (battery pack) team — UWindsor Formula Electric
- $600 + 1-week JLR internship — Automotive AI Competition
- AI memory optimization challenge
- 2nd Overall + 1st in Category — PresentPro (2025)
- 2nd Place Overall — Second Life (2024)
- Finalist — SketchBot (2026)
- WinGrid (2022)
- People's Choice + Open Data Winner — WinParks (2021)
- Exponent Base e Calculator, solo (2020)
- Edge Pong — solo build: spatial-haptics smart paddle
- Hand-motion-controlled FPS zombie game
- Finalist — SketchBot V2 with AprilTag tracking
- Covid-19 Global — trustworthy worldwide statistics app
- Team mentor — UWindsor delegation
- 4× 1st Place — programming challenge (2020–2023)
- Junior challenge — wind turbine build (2019)
- Four appearances representing Windsor
- 6× Gold + sponsor awards (2014–2019)
- Returned as judge & mentor (2026)
- 1st Place
- Innovation Mastery Award + $1,000 — Entrepreneurship Excellence Awards
- 3rd Place — oral research presentation
- 4th Place + $2,500 — startup pitch competition
- 1st Place — WeatherPy, first-ever hackathon (2017)
- Virtual Connect 4 app (2018)
- 1st Place — Automotive UI/UX Challenge (2026)
- IEEE Best Demo capstone drone
- STEM Entrepreneurship Bootcamp — People's Choice (2018)
## The Map — Postcards from the Road all postcards →
pick a landmark — each city deals its postcards · flip one over ↻
Windsor — 🏠 Home base, under the Ambassador Bridge — science fairs, WEC ×4, 14 hackathons, the CHARGE Lab.
pick a landmark · flip a card ↻
NASA Space Apps Challenge: visualizing near-Earth asteroid data to make planetary defense tangible. Won Windsor and earned a global nomination.
Real-time presentation coaching: live speech analysis flags pacing over 160 wpm and nudges you through a vibrating IoT wearable. React, FastAPI, AssemblyAI, ESP32.
The university's entrepreneurship award — the venture story gets its first trophy.
Four straight 1st places in WEC programming (2020–2023) and four Ontario Engineering Competition appearances — see the full record.
Optimizing automotive AI memory with Jaguar Land Rover — prize money and an internship offer.
Give your EV battery a second life in a microgrid — a platform to collect, test, and repurpose end-of-life EV batteries for energy storage. Born from my battery research.
The Album
It turns its own pages — or take over with the arrows. The teams, stages, and labs behind the record.
Where I've Worked
MASc, Electrical & Computer Engineering — McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario · starting Fall 2026 · EV battery research — continuing the thread from the CHARGE Lab into graduate study.
BASc, Electrical & Computer Engineering — University of Windsor
Minor in Computer Science · 2019–2024 · Capstone: the IEEE Best Demo autonomous drone.
Software Engineer Intern — Autonomous Drone Systems
Built full-stack autonomous drone systems at Research Into Internet Systems — flight automation, cloud backends, and computer vision working as one product.
- Computer-vision models counting vehicles in parking lots from drone imagery
- End-to-end drone mapping with cloud processing and weed-detection delivery
- AWS cloud APIs for large-scale image processing and secure flight-data storage
- Backend + UI for managing media from DJI and Parrot drones
- Vehicle logistics platform: manager dashboard + React Native driver app with real-time tracking
Automotive Power Electronics & Battery Research Assistant
EV battery and power electronics research at the Centre for Hybrid Automotive Research and Green Energy — from designing battery packs to helping build the lab itself.
- Designed and assembled battery packs and BMS, with firmware enforcing electrical/thermal safety limits
- Developed power electronic converters and motor-drive firmware for EV propulsion
- Designed PCBs around Texas Instruments controllers with current/voltage sensing
- Presented "Dual-Chemistry Load Distribution for EV Battery Systems Using Cascaded H-Bridge Inverters" at IEEE EPEC 2025 — industry-partnered with Magna
- Helped establish the university battery research laboratory from planning to installation
Robotics Mentor — Elementary Schools
Helped hundreds of elementary students discover engineering through hands-on robotics and programming — teaching Arduino, C++, and engineering problem solving. Watching young learners struggle with syntax-heavy programming directly inspired my current venture. Also active as a judge and mentor across the community: Genius Cup robotics, CS Games (Montreal), and the Windsor Regional Science, Technology & Engineering Fair.
Giving the Spark Away
Engineering only matters if it reaches people. Mentoring, judging, and teaching are how I pay forward what robotics gave me.
Genius Cup — Robotics Mentor & Judge
Mentoring and judging young builders at Windsor's Genius Cup robotics competition — watching kids light up when their robot moves for the first time never gets old.
Science Fair Judge & Mentor
Judging and mentoring at the regional fair that feeds into the Canada-Wide Science Fair — the same competition circuit where my own journey started.
CS Games — Team Mentor
Mentoring the University of Windsor delegation at CS Games, an inter-university computer science competition spanning algorithms, AI, and systems challenges.
Elementary Robotics Mentor
Years of hands-on robotics workshops with hundreds of elementary students — teaching Arduino, C++, and problem solving. These classrooms inspired SaySpark.
The Path So Far
First Science Fair
The start of six gold-medal years at the Windsor Regional Science Fair.
The National Stage
Canada-Wide Science Fair: four finals appearances, two bronze, a silver, and a $10k UOttawa scholarship.
First Hackathon, First Win
WeatherPy takes 1st place at Bordercity Hackathon — the start of a decade of building under pressure.
University of Windsor — Electrical & Computer Engineering
BASc with a CS minor — plus the Formula SAE accumulator team and four straight WEC programming titles.
IEEE PIMRC Best Demo — Toronto
The capstone indoor autonomous drone wins Best Demo; EPICentre awards the Innovation Mastery Award.
RIIS — Software Engineer Intern
Full-stack autonomous drone systems: flight automation, AWS cloud, and computer vision.
Research — CHARGE Lab
EV battery packs, BMS firmware, and power electronics with Magna — presented at IEEE EPEC 2025 in Waterloo.
NASA Space Apps — 1st + Global Nomination
Meteor Madness wins Windsor and earns a global nomination; JLR competition earns an internship.
Entrepreneurship — SaySpark
Founding SaySpark (sayspark.ca): voice-first robotics education, live in early access — and mentoring the next generation along the way.
MASc — McMaster University
EV battery research in Hamilton — the next chapter.
The Full Stack — Silicon to Cloud
[ AI ]
[ Software ]
[ Embedded ]
[ Robotics ]
[ Manufacturing ]
[ Hardware ]
Work With Me
▸ Robotics Consulting
Helping teams prototype robots and embedded systems from concept to demo.
▸ AI Product Development
Designing AI-powered software and hardware experiences from concept to prototype.
▸ Embedded Systems
Firmware, sensors, microcontrollers, and hardware integration.
▸ Computer Vision
Camera-based automation, perception, and edge AI solutions.
▸ Speaking & Workshops
Robotics, AI, entrepreneurship, engineering design, and STEM education.
▸ Mentorship
Guidance for engineering students, hackathon teams, and early-stage founders.