Neil Macmillan Email & Phone Number

Victoria, Bc

I work on many tasks including a wireless mesh networking stack and various client projects. My work has included:* Designing custom circuit board and enclosure prototypes for test systems and new products.* Debugging custom 802.15.4 radio circuitry.* Hand-assembling test units and enclosures for small-scale outdoor testing.* Writing firmware modules, including for task scheduling, EEPROM logging, application testing using the Atmel 802.15.4 stack, UART with hardware flow control, radio power and range testing, and miscellaneous low-level hardware interfacing.* Implementing various software tools including firmware deployment tools for AVR and MSP430, a power monitoring and reporting application, and a wireless sensor network simulator, in C# and C.* Implementing prototype firmware for a client's MSP430-based product.* Porting a hardware monitoring and logging application to LabView.* Optimizing a client's DSP application.

I volunteer to help the site owner maintain a web server that hosts three websites. My responsibilities include day-to-day maintenance, site management, and security management on a CentOS 7 platform running Apache 2, PHP, MySQL, and dovecot.

I was a lab TA for CSC 460, a computer science course in real-time system programming. My duties included:* Introducing students to embedded programming and advising them on real-time development and C programming techniques.* Writing demo code for AVR timers, sensor interfacing, etc.* Helping students integrate past work on the nRF24L01 radio and the Roomba into their projects.* Creating systems to support the lab assignments, such as a debug station for wireless print debugging and a Roomba control station that students used to send commands to the Roomba wirelessly.* Assisting students with the mechanical and electronic parts of their projects, such as building infrared shields and putting together power regulation circuits.

I was the TA for SENG 466: Software for Mechatronic and Embedded Systems. My duties included:* Preparing instructions for setting up the development environment and building components (such as a resistor-based current sensor)* Investigating the Arduino hardware and library, and providing modified and compiled versions of Arduino to students* Consulting with students on various aspects of their projects, including mechanical, electronic, and software design.* Writing an extensive online lab guide to help students get up to speed with mechatronics development (available at http://bit.ly/VuASjk)

I worked on a research grant to develop embedded software to make it easier for students to use the iRobot Roomba as a mobile robot platform. I investigated some of the Roomba's undocumented characteristics such as sensor delay and drive error, and wrote an interface to make it easy for students to configure and control the Roomba over its serial interface.

This project involved building a robotic drummer. To complete the requirements for the ENGR 466 mechatronics design project course, I worked with an electrical engineering student and a mechanical engineering student to reproduce and improve the design created by a former PhD candidate for his dissertation at UVic. Our client, Dr. George Tzanetakis, will use the robot we built as an educational tool. My activities included:* Developing robust firmware targetting the Arduino microcontroller for translating MIDI input to actuation signals.* Consulting with my team members on hardware-software interfacing and electrical design.* Contributing to design reports and end-user documentation.* Adding to the Arduino documentation on http://www.arduino.cc .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-yHQaoSBcA

Calgary, Canada Area

During my 16 month work term, I developed and maintained software for automated system testing of military tactical communications equipment. My responsibilities as the technical primary of a 3-person team included:* Updating legacy libraries to support new hardware and firmware.* Adding features and fixing bugs in legacy applications.* Updating old software developed using Windows NT and Visual Studio 6.0 to work on Windows XP and Visual Studio 2008.* Developing new tests and new functionality such as automated regression tests and an RPC command framework for coordinating tests across multiple networked test stations.* Writing new software applications such as a test script generator and a log analyzer.* Performing manual tests with the larger system test team when they needed another tester.

During my 4 month work term I developed software for Sparklit's Activeboard forum service. My responsibilities included:* Completing and testing the implementation of an improved backend framework that took advantage of memory caching and new features in PHP to reduce database server load and make the software more maintainable.* Responding to customer issues using Sparklit's CRM software.* Fixing bugs in Activeboard and other Sparklit products.* Adding features to Activeboard, especially by improving the forum administration tools.* Building servers, installing OpenWRT on a wireless router, and installing Linux on servers.

M.Sc., Computer Science, Mechatronics

Activities and Societies: Science Venture, Let's Talk Science, high school tours, other outreach activities Partially completed thesis.

B.Sc., Computer Science, Mechatronics