Ameet Rao

Ameet Rao

I'm Ameet, a 17 year old high school student working on aerospace systems, hardware design, and AI-robotics research. I'm currently building Moldr, a gesture- and voice-powered CAD platform.

Reach out:

LinkedInEmail

Worked With

  • NASA TechRise Challenge
  • Samsung Electronics
  • DNREC Agency
  • MuseEngine Platform
  • FIRST Robotics Competition
  • UC Berkeley

Experience

  1. Jan 2024 — Present

    NASA TechRise Student Challenge

    Team Lead & Proposal Author

    • Lead electrical design and component selection for NASA flight payloads
    • Evaluate power, mass, and system requirements for high-altitude balloon experiment.
    • Selected as 1 of 60 winning teams nationwide
    • Awarded $1,500 in NASA funding through the TechRise program
    • Received recognition from Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester
    • Launching experiments to 95,000 ft aboard World View balloons
    See more
  2. 2025

    AI/Robotics Research; UC Berkeley mentor

    AI Researcher — Co-author

    • Co-author of AI research applying a novel vision-language model framework with applications for robotics
    • Processed NExtQA dataset videos into formats for Gemini and ChatGPT
    • Ran object detection and scene context experiments, with and without reasoning
    • Demonstrated performance gains up to +9% in LLM-Match accuracy
    • 1 of 17 papers accepted worldwide to VLM4RWD (NeurIPS 2025), presented in Mexico City in November 2025
    See more
  3. 2025 — Present

    Samsung Solve for Tomorrow

    Inventor & Team Lead — HydroScan

    • Partnered with environmental engineers from DNREC
    • Developed a rapid water-quality testing device
    • Advanced to Samsung Solve for Tomorrow semifinals
    • Awarded $10,000 in funding
    • Ranked among the Top 100 teams nationally
    • Top 0.369% out of 27,250 entries nationwide
    See more
  4. Aug 2023 — Present

    FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics

    Hardware Lead

    • Lead robot hardware development and CAD design
    • Designed custom intake systems and fabricated mechanical components
    • Conduct testing, failure analysis, and design reviews
    • Mentored 22 underclassmen and helped start 2 additional teams
    • Team ranked in the top 4% globally in 2024
    • Delaware State Design Award - FTC Robotics
    See more
  5. Oct 2023 — Apr 2024

    MuseEngine

    Engineering Intern

    • Built Python control software for hardware systems
    • Integrated Arduino firmware and electronics prototypes
    • Modeled actuator performance and magnetic field behavior
    • Collaborated directly with executive leadership
    See more

Selected Projects

HydroScan

Rapid environmental water-testing platform developed alongside DNREC engineers to improve accessibility and speed of water quality monitoring.

PhonoVis

Wearable assistive technology for the hearing impaired. Detects alarms, loud sounds, and important spoken keywords. Designed circuitry and wiring architecture, soldered electronics, and built a custom 3D-printed enclosure. Currently exploring partnerships with local deaf organizations.

NASA Payload Systems

Flight-ready aerospace payloads developed through the NASA TechRise program, focused on electrical systems engineering and high-altitude experimentation.

Awards

  • National STEM Festival Finalist (1 of 344 nationwide)
  • NASA TechRise Winner (1 of 60 nationwide)
  • Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Semifinalist ($10,000 award)
  • Delaware State Design Award - FTC Robotics
  • IRO + Algoverse AI Scholarship — 3rd Place / 150

Skills

Engineering
Electrical Design, Soldering, Hardware Prototyping, Systems Engineering, Wiring Organization
CAD
Onshape, Fusion360, SOLIDWORKS
Software
Python, Arduino
Simulation
SimScale, OpenRocket