FADHIL LAWAL
Electrical & Computer Engineering @ Vanderbilt University | POSSE Scholar
Electrical & Computer Engineering @ Vanderbilt University | POSSE Scholar
Assistive Steering Control System for Disabled Operators Ongoing
Motus is an assistive steering attachment that lets people with limited upper-body mobility drive independently. A joystick controls a stepper motor and planetary gearbox through custom ESP32 firmware, with sensorless homing via stall detection and a 12-bit magnetic encoder handling precise position tracking. The mount itself is 3D-printed and designed in Fusion 360 to fit a range of steering wheels and rim sizes, so the system can work across different vehicles.
1st Place – Ironsite x Vanderbilt Spatial Intelligence Hackathon ($10,000 Award)
Ironsite is a voice-driven AR assistant built for construction workers over a 24-hour hackathon. A worker speaks a command, Deepgram transcribes it, Claude turns it into a structured instruction, and the result shows up as a real-time overlay in a mixed-reality headset. The whole stack was built end-to-end, covering a Python voice agent, a FastAPI command server, and a Unity simulation communicating over HTTP polling and WebSockets, and we took first place with a $10,000 award.
Vanderbilt Improvement Award - Vanderbilt Global Good Hackathon
ReADY Bot is a voice-assisted helper that speeds up Vanderbilt ReADY maintenance request submissions with less manual form work. Built as a Chrome extension (with optional Flask support), it guides users through an emergency-first conversation, collects required maintenance details, maps natural language responses to form schema values, and fills live ReADY form fields including radios, checkboxes, text inputs, and Select2 location fields.
Autonomous Path Planning & Obstacle Avoidance Ongoing
On the Vanderbilt Robotics programming team, I work on the software stack for our IGVC competition robot. IGVC is an international competition where autonomous robots navigate an outdoor course using only white lane markers, with no GPS and no remote control. My focus is path planning and obstacle avoidance, especially making the line-following logic handle real-world messiness like faded or missing markers. A lot of it is iterative. We test on the field, tune the thresholds, and repeat until the robot is consistently reliable.
Intelligent Email Automation Platform
Larynx AI is a Gmail-integrated email assistant built for small business owners. It monitors your inbox, reads incoming messages, and drafts replies that actually sound like you, matching your tone, referencing your inventory, and staying consistent with how you talk to customers. The idea came from watching business owners spend hours on repetitive emails that could be automated with the right context.
Advanced Remote Vehicle with Live Streaming
Carpet Cruiser started as a weekend project and turned into a full engineering exercise. It's a remote-controlled vehicle built around the ESP32 that streams live video, avoids obstacles in real time, and is driven through a browser-based interface. Along the way I designed a custom PCB in KiCad that cut the system footprint by 40% compared to the original breadboard prototype.
V1 Prototype
Custom PCB Design
V2 Internal Components
Circuit Schematic
Global Soccer Transfer Monitoring Platform
Transfer Tracker is a website I built to follow soccer player transfers from around the world. It covers 125,000+ players across 4,000 clubs and 200 leagues, with data pulled automatically through custom Python scrapers. The backend runs on Django and is hosted on AWS EC2, and at its peak it had over 150 active users checking in on moves across the global transfer market.
August 2025 – Present
August 2025 – Present
June 2023 – August 2023
September 2022 – June 2023
March 2023 – May 2024
June 2021 – August 2022
August 2025 – Present
October 2024 – May 2025
September 2024 – December 2024
August 2025 – May 2026
Full-tuition leadership scholarship recognizing academic excellence, leadership potential, and commitment to community service. Prestigious program supporting diverse leaders in higher education.
Competitive scholarship program supporting underrepresented students in technology, recognizing academic achievement and commitment to diversity in STEM fields.
National championship title in competitive debate through the National Speech and Debate Association, demonstrating exceptional research, argumentation, and public speaking skills.
Academic achievement recognition based on exceptional PSAT/NMSQT performance, representing top 1% of test-takers nationwide with demonstrated academic excellence.
Championship victory at the prestigious University of Kentucky Tournament of Champions, competing against the nation's top debaters in congressional debate format.
District-wide recognition for outstanding academic performance and extracurricular achievement throughout high school career in the Katy Independent School District.
Special recognition from Seven Lakes High School honoring exceptional contribution to school community and demonstration of leadership, character, and academic excellence.
State championship title through the University Interscholastic League, Texas's premier high school academic competition organization, in congressional debate.
Email: fadhillawal06@gmail.com
