Polaron Posadas
✉ polaronrp@gmail.com // (512) 938-9318
Education
COURSEWORK: Computer Systems, Digital Signal Processing, Linear Algebra, Imperative Programming, Digital Logic Design, Analog Circuit Design, Experimental Sound Synthesis
Skills
- C/C++, Rust, Python, Assembly (x86+ARM), MATLAB, Java, SystemVerilog, HTML/CSS
- Windows/Unix systems
- KiCad + PCB design
- DSP/filter design on embedded systems (Arduino, STM32)
- Modeling (OnShape, Blender), CAD and laser cutting
- Avid Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Max/MSP, audio synthesis
- Unity Engine + real-time 3D animation and visualization
- Amateur radio license, Technician-class
Experience
- Retrofitted retired London Underground train cars as part of a startup to build nation’s first fully battery-powered passenger trains
- Improved power capacity and efficiency by revising mechanical/electrical control systems to modern standards
Projects
- With team of 5 developed firmware stack for self-driving vehicle to be pushed by humans along planned path
- Wrote a nonlinear Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) in C++ to estimate vehicle position and state by processing live sensor data (GPS, IMU) for a custom-built inertial navigation system
- Implemented matrix square root in embedded C++ and tuned filter’s system covariance using real-world tests
- Developed system for sending and receiving high-precision GPS-RTK packets on Teensy microcontroller through LoRa radio and ROS framework
- Designed and built a desktop synthesizer instrument for creating complex ambient and drone textures using analog circuits and embedded systems
- Built custom VCO and VCF circuits to perform various wavefolding and distortion operations using KiCad
- Contributed to volunteer team of 20 to develop scalable and secure wiki software designed to replace the Wikidot platform, including an internal database backend and web server frontend
- Gained experience with industry standard developer tools including issue-tracking with Jira and remote development with Docker and NodeJS
- Digitally processed real-time audio signals and OSC messages with a combination of Max and Unity using mel-frequency cepstral coefficients in order to drive data controlling 3D animations
- Used a neural network to classify sounds based on frequency features, training data on analog synthesizer outputs
- Demonstrated system’s ability to control complex image sequences and transform/deform 3D models in real time performance
- Simulated and synthesized a simplified variant of the RISC-V ISA onto Altera FPGA for class project, including ALU, finite state machine, datapath, and register file
- Studied and benchmarked performance of arithmetic operations via assembly program
- Designed and implemented new instruction to perform 32-bit addition at greatly increased speed, modifying both FSM and datapath accordingly
- Worked as lead sound designer and assistant sound engineer for college theater organization’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s play Eurydice
- Created, synthesized and compiled over one hundred distinct effects and was responsible for designing and directing all aspects of the performance’s sonic identity and its implementation
- Handled issues regarding wireless/RF microphones and room acoustics treatment and mixed audio live for audiences in the hundreds
Leadership
- Handled campus recruitment and advertising for student-run maker/hackerspace of 100+ active members, through maintaining newsletter correspondence and in-person events
- Helped organize Red Robot, the club's flagship beginner robotics hackathon, by designing promotional material, reaching out to potential participants, and devising game rules
- Offered on-the-go assistance and tutoring to students during the competition on debugging code and using the tools in the space
- Connected with corporate sponsors to negotiate partnerships, tech talks, and career events for club members
- Involved in scheduling, developing, and running writing contests on a regular schedule for collaborative fiction site of over 700,000 members, including themed team-based events and its high-profile SCP-x000 competitions
- Proposed and designed new projects, such as new user interface and navigation layouts or rewrites of certain pages, directing volunteers to complete projects through a hierarchical staff structure
- Managed public relations, oversaw SCP's official social media platforms such as Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) with followers in the hundreds of thousands
- Involved in creation of content and resources to educate wider online community
- Founded an online forum for budding writers to publish in-depth analyses, commentaries, and critiques of works of short fiction found on the SCP Wiki
- Built community from the ground up through recruiting new writers regularly, curating the quality of analyses published, and overseeing growth from one-man operation to editorial board with guest writers + subscribed audience of 50,000+
- Personally wrote a number of commentaries during this period (a total of 31)
- Helped start and cultivate first dedicated organization for supporting the student furry community at Carnegie Mellon University
- Recruited new members through viral marketing tactics such as posters, fursuit walks, and street art
- Maintained member interest through regularly organizing group events at museums, parks, and conventions, and through connecting with local Pittsburgh furry community