Simon Zirui Guo

About Me

Hi there!

My name is Simon and I am pursuing a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. My main interest are in real-time ML systems such as self-driving cars, accelerated computing and novel computer architecture, as well as distributed systems.

I am currently looking for internship opportunities for the summer of 2021. Please feel free to contact me!

See my resume

Picture of Simon with His Dev Car at NVIDIA

Self-Driving Vehicle I helped built at NVIDIA, Summer 2021.

Current and Past Roles

See Resume for Details

NVIDIA

2021.5 - 2021.8

Santa Clara, California

Software Intern, Autonomous Vehicle

Enable NVIDIA's test fleets of autonomous vehicles and future products by partner such as Mercedes-Benz.

HAX by SOSV

2019.6 - 2019.8

Shenzhen, China

Mechatronics Engineering & Venture Intern

Built Mechatronics prototypes for portfolio companies and helped out with investments for the World's first and largest Hardware Accelerator.

Interaxon

2018.6 - 2018.8

Toronto, Canada

R&D Intern

Designed software architecture that turn biometrics to sound for Muse 2, the second generation of the Muse brain-sensing headband and most advanced consumer brain-computer interfaces on market.

Blockchain at Berkeley

2019.9 - Now

San Francisco Bay Area

Educator

Learning and teaching the fundamentals and frontiers of Blockchain technology. Instructor for CS 198-077 Blockchain for Developers and CS 198-078 Blockchain Fundamentals, student-ran courses apporved by Berkeley EECS department.

Hackathon Organizing

Co-founded and organised China's largest youth hackathon hack.init(), THEHack (24 hours, 300 & 500 students respectively) in 2017 and 2018.
Organised Canada's largest high school hackathon THacks2 (300 participants) at University of Toronto with the Toronto Hacker Club.

Other Past Affiliations

Member of University of Toronto Robotics Association SumoBot Team
Member and Event Organizer at NeuroTechTO

Education

University of California, Berkeley

Graduating in May 2023

Berkeley, California, USA

B.S., Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences

Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholar (awarded to top 2% of incoming class), Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, Accel Scholar, Blockchain at Berkeley, Association of Chinese Entrepreneurs, Kairos Society

Minor in Bioengineering.

Upper Canada College

2015.9 - 2019.6

Toronto, Canada

International Baccalaureate & Ontario Secondary School Diploma

Other Programs

MIT Launch Incubator (Summer 2017)
University Of Toronto Da Vinci Engineering Enrichment Program (Summer 2016)
Canadian Mathematical Society Math Camp (Summer 2016)
Johns Hopkins University Center For Talented Youth (Summer 2015)

Things I worked on

Sorted from the latest to the oldest.

Hover to view project description, Click to view the details.

Last Updated July 2019

Tensorfield Agriculture

Enabling herbicide-free agriculture through farm robots equipped with thermal weeding and computer vision.

Air Jam

Learn to play an instrument without actually owning one, using the power of computer vision and machine learning.

Optical Illusion: Modelling and Constructing an Ambiguous Cylinder

A general mathematical model of the ambiguous cylinder optical illsuion and a circle-triangle illusion generated with the model.

TwitterVRse

A Virtual Reality experience to view and post tweets, transforming the mechanical interaction to a much more immersive and metaphorical one.

Muse 2

Second generation of the Muse brain sensing headband. It composes meditating soundscape based on mind, heart, breath, and stillness. I was part of the R&D team behind this. I helped design and develop the audio software component.

Metal Fatigue in Eyeglasses Legs

An investigation on the relationship between aluminium hinge hole radius and the fatigue life under continuous bending stress.

Muse Octopus Garden Concert

An interactive sound bath experience with sound and mind-controlled light shows

Standing Wave Thermoacoustic Refrigeration

An experimental standing wave thermoacoustics refrigerator that acts as a heat pump using acoustic power.

P300 Research

Conduct research on the effect of different proportions of visual target and non-target stimulations on the brain, through data analysis on event related potential collected.

MindCraft

Mind-controlled Minecraft in web-based virtual reality.

From the HeARt

AR-enabled two person deep breathing cooperative meditation teaching experience using biosignals.

Sweetbud

A coffee lid that uses electrical stimulations on your tongue to simulate sweetness to replace sugar in beverages.

Miss Arcade

An Alexa skill that targets children in elementary school (ages 6 - 10) with the goal of educating them on how to manage their time with rewards system

CD Spoofing and Overclocking

Implement CD Red Book audio on a microcontroller to inject our own sound.

Donna

A customizable registration system for conferences and events.

PhiRacks

A smart bike rack system that aims to prevent bike thefts through computer vision, blockchain, and IoT.

Home Point

A seamless smart home experience that integrates augmented reality, gesture control, and voice assistance.

Build a Business in Brampton

Analyzes your business information to suggest ideal location to open your business in Brampton through data analysis

Mobike Go

A peer-to-peer bike sharing platform using IoT and blockchain network.

Cooxle

A twitter-like social media platform using php and mysql for ICS-4U dynamic website group project.

DronesNet

A urban drone traffic management system that visualizes regional drone activities and indicates regulations

UTRA SumoBot

Autonomous SumoBot

WaveBank

A low-cost, convenient, remote, and consistent platform for research into Dementia

Respect Ur Trash (Smart Trash Bin)

An educational trash bin either rejects or accepts trash thrown in via image recognition

ShopRight

In store shopping with knowledge and comparison of products only a picture away.

Myo Snake

A computer science course project: Snake game controlled by Myo Armband

Pop Midi

This instrument brings a new sense of fun and uniqueness with its cool resonating sound and eco-friendly nature!

Farm Radar

A modular remote sensing system that scans agricultural and environmental data and gives real time feedback.

Best Pitch

This super recorder senses your recorder's pitch and auto-adjust the length to form the right pitch and frequency

Do You Want To Hug Me? (IoT Stressball)

A simple combination of a stress ball, desktop buddy, and hug-tracker to track your mental health changes and give advice for stress releasing.

ANN hand written digit recognition

A program that takes picture of image of hand-written digits, and anaylze what the digit mostly would be through machine learning.

Hexapod Rescue Robot

A low-cost, highly-efficient and intelligent, bio-inspired searching robot.

Multi-sensor Rescue Tank

A tank testing platform incorporating multiple types of sensors to detect life in rescue missions.

Smart Push-up Shirt

A shirt that measures and adjusts your push-up/sit-up positions based on biosignals collected.

Smart Walking Stick

A walking stick that detects stairs, picks up items, lights up the road, records accidents, and calls the ambulance automatically when user is in danger.

Cat Rescue Robot

A robot rescues cats hidden under car tires during the winter by dropping cat food, grabbing cat and drying them, and shipping them to safe shelters.

INTERESTS

Unconventional and radical ideas challenges the way we do things

I believe radical ideas can provide unforeseen thoughts and new directions to issues, and I worked on experimenting with those in many of my hackathons and long-term projects.

Notable Prototypes I worked on

List of projects made in 29+ hackathons
EEG headband to compose meditative music based on brain activity (Muse 2)
Coffee lid that eletrically stimulates tongue to generate sweetness to replace sugar (Sweetbud)
Robot that percisely drops oil on weeds to enable herbicide-free agriculture (Tensofield)

Bridging the gap and increase access to technology education

Technicality and lack of resources restrict many from being potential technologists, and this affects disproportional among various groups. I create those opportunities for others through events and open courses.

Initiatives I am working on

Teaching 2 courses on Blockchain and Blockchain Engineering at UC Berkeley
Organized 3 hackathons of 300-500 participants in Canada and China
Ran about 20 technical workshops at hackathons
Taught 4 years of robotics to Toronto inner-city public school 5th-graders

Building core infrastructure for accelerating technological adoption

I think many of the fundamental work to enable emerging technologies to be adapted massively needs to be done, whether that is new software architecture & library, hardware systems, or protocal standards

Things I Aspire to Worked On

Hardware providing secure execution environment and verification acceleration for blockchain
Methods to interface the brain with high bandwidth yet minimal long-term impact of brain tissues.
Decreasing power consumption of ML algorithms through specialized chip design

Areas I have Worked On

A summary of various areas I have worked on or researched into through projects.

Distributed Web Decentrailized Applications Brain-Computer Interface Mechatronics System Augmented Reality beyond Vision Carbon-Nanotube Based Sensors Thermoacoustics Geometric Optical Illusion Computer Vision Soviet-Yugoslavia Relationship Design Principles behind Military Equipment

Learning

A list of my learning journey and recommendations. Feel free to let me know if you recommend anything.

Awards

Product Design & Innovation

CES 2019 Innovation Award in Fitness, Sports, and Biotech for Muse 2 with the Interaxon team
Second Place at SXSW Student Startup Madness 2018
2017-2018 Conrad Spirit of Innovation Challenge Semi-finalist
The Paradigm Challenge Finalist (2018)

Computer Science & Engineering

Second Place Overall at Product Hunt Global Hackathon 2017
Upper Canada College Thompson Prize in Computer Studies (2017)
Finalist (Top 14 Overall) at Hack the North 2017
Best Use of Brampton Open Data/Esri Tech at Cipher Bonfire 2017
Third Place Overall at TechCrunch Shenzhen Hackathon 2017
C2's Best Hack for Air Traffic Control at MHacks 9 (2017)
Best Pitch at UTSHacks I (2017)
Best Project with Mentor at Cipher Presents Local Hack Day 2016
(Participated as a mentor/hacker guru)
Bronze Medal and SAP Innovation award at Electric City Hacks 2016
Best Devpost submission at Hack Western 3 (2016)

Science & Engineering Research

Upper Canada College J.A. Gilham Prize in Higher Level Physics (2019)
Upper Canada College Chemistry Prize Standard Level (2019)
Upper Canada College Senior Mann Prize in Practical Science – Extended Essay in Science: Finalist (2018)
DoYewno? High School Research Competition: Winner (2018)
Toronto Science Fair 2018: Silver Medal
Toronto Science Fair 2016: Gold Medal, The Life Labs Award
Patent: CN205285316U, Smart Walking Stick (Issued in 2016)

Other

University of California, Berkeley Regents' and Chancellor's scholarship (2019)
University of Waterloo President’s Scholarship of Distinction (2019)
University of Toronto Scholar scholarship (2019)
University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering Admission Scholarship (2019)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Medalist (2018)
Upper Canada College Awards (CAS Award, Gold & Silver Service Award, Year 12, 11 Principal's List, Year 11, 10 General Proficiency Award)
Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award (2016)
Represented Upper Canada College to attend Harvard MIT Mathematics Tournament 2016
Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth Grand Award 2015