Electronic Engineering · UCD Dublin
Joe Biju
A 19-y/o with a bad habit of saying YES to crazy ideas.
Combat robots. Autonomous drones. Smart breadboards.
Now in third year at UCD, I keep that habit alive by building, leading, and helping other people bring ambitious projects to life.
About
Theory is cool.Application is better.
€24k+
Sponsorship Raised
40+
Students / Week
Total 2
Planes Crashed
∞
Side Quests Started
As an Electronic & Computer Engineering student at UCD, I've seen many people spend too much time absorbing information, but not executing. I'm trying to change that.
Most weeks you'll find me until midnight in the Engineering Building tinkering on some old robotics project or planning how to automate the smallest inconvience — I'm constantly driven to push myself to the next level and pick up some new skills along the way.
Outside of my own builds, I run MakerLabs and mentor teams — giving people confidence from “cool idea” to a functioning prototype.
Embedded Systems
Microcontrollers, shift registers, hall effect sensors, SPI, Bluetooth. The stuff that senses and moves.
Avionics & UAVs
ArduPilot, differential thrust, telemetry, GPS. Designing control systems that make things fly autonomously.
Prototyping & Fabrication
Soldering, Onshape, Blender, EasyEDA, 3D printing. Idea to prototype, end to end.
Space & Comms
Modulation, satellite uplinks, ground control ops. Trained at ESA in Belgium on spacecraft communications.
Teaching & Outreach
Founded MakerLabs — 40+ students per week learning electronics from scratch. RoboChess mentor. STEM content creator.
Startups & Leadership
Co-founded ScopeLab at Patch. Led 15-person ops for Formula Student, raising €24k+ in sponsorship.
Builds
Things I've built.
Combat robots, startup hardware, autonomous drones, and everything in between. Click any card to dig into the details.
Roles
Where I've worked.
Teams, organisations, and positions. The places where I learned as much from the people as from the engineering. Click to expand.
- Founded and teaching MakerLabs, a UCD-backed programme providing students hands-on electronics experience.
- Designed and delivered workshops on microcontrollers, motors, sensors, and digital systems.
- 40+ attendees per week with certificates and prizes for top performers.
- One of 34 students under-21 selected nationwide to join Ireland's leading accelerator for young founders.
- Co-founded ScopeLab, leading firmware design on ESP32/PlatformIO for a custom PCB board.
- Worked with mentors from Stripe, OpenAI, and Akara Robotics. Demoed to 200+ people at showcase.
- In charge of control and telemetry systems to enable autonomous flight of a large-scale humanitarian UAV using ArduPilot.
- 2 Awards + 4 Runner-up positions in our first year as Ireland's only team to compete in the UK's IMechE UAS Challenge.
- Researched and selected components valued over €930. Produced wiring schematics and cost-benefit analysis reports.
- Designed and built a custom small-scale UAV as a testbed for avionics before deploying to the main airframe.
- Led a 15-person department handling finance, marketing, and logistics for UCD's EV race car team.
- Secured over €24,000 in sponsorship and reached 6,000+ people across socials.
- Designed and presented the team's business plan at Silverstone -- 3rd out of 91 teams.
- Led the complete revival of the website at ucdfs.ie with blogs, profiles, and a careers page.
- Formatted and posted bi-weekly technical posts teaching STEM and Formula 1 engineering concepts.
- Presented the business plan as part of the competition, scoring 13th out of over 100 teams.
- Acted as team photographer and videographer during the event at Silverstone.
- Awarded funding by ElecSoc to pursue an engineering project of choice -- chose RoboChess.
- Leading weekly build sessions, mentoring 2-6 students including non-engineering majors.
- Teaching electronics and mechanical design through hands-on participation in the project.
- Worked as part of a research team designing an innovative wearable device for measuring calorimetry using heat-flux.
- Designed and supported development utilising C++, SPI and Bluetooth protocols. Iterated to prototype v2.
- Partitioned TF card storage to improve read/write speeds for continuous data logging.
- One of 30 students across Europe and Canada sponsored to attend the LGSC 2025 at the European Space Security and Education Centre, Redu, Belgium.
- Studied modulation, demodulation, coding, noise analysis, and lessons from previous ESA missions.
- Completed realistic ground control simulations -- our team was the only one to successfully complete the mission scenario, reestablishing a satellite uplink after a technical fault.
- Presented a mission design for a satellite communication system from Earth, stopping at Ceres, with a Pluto fly-by.
- Scripted and hosted Episode 5 -- Reflective Assignments -- investigating the impact of AI in education for UCD's examination system.
- Completed thorough desk research and conducted interviews with experts in the field.
- Awarded a spot-prize for leadership, creativity, and contribution. The series culminated in a book launch.
- Served as conference ambassador for the ECPR conference hosted at UCD.
- Assisted with logistics, guided attendees, and gained experience in large-scale event operations.
- Shadowed and assisted a research scientist during day-to-day tasks at CRANN's Advanced Materials Laboratory.
- Prepared samples for clients and conducted audits of building equipment.
- Prepared electronics kits for primary school students interested in STEM -- an early experience that shaped my interest in teaching and outreach.
- Five summers of accelerated STEM education through CTY Ireland.
- Early exposure to advanced topics in engineering, mathematics, and computer science that shaped a foundation for hands-on building and experimentation.
Contact
Working on something cool?
Reach out. I'm always open.