Ricardo's Place Robotics, machine learning, or simply random thoughts!

About...

…This Website

On this website, I’ll present some of the things I’m currently working on and also some of my old projects. As an Engineer, I’m always looking forward learning and trying new things. So, I hope you will enjoy it!

…Me

Me!
The robots I've been playing with during my Ph.D, and sometimes fixing too (from left to right): Pepper, NAO, BAXTER (hugging me), iCub, Scitos G5 and GummiArm.
I am very tenacious, for better or worse. If my attention is engaged, I cannot disengage it. This may be a great strength, or weakness. It makes me an investigator - Oliver Sacks

If I had to describe myself in a sentence, I would say: I’m a get things done guy. I’m a self learner and I always work very hard until I solve the problems and get things done within schedule and budget!

I’m also an Electrical Engineer (Five Years, full-time, just a few survivors at the end…) with a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering / Automation (Two Years, full-time, maybe even less survivors at the end…), both from UFRGS. My undergrad certificate says “Electrical Engineer” and my training had the basic blocks from traditional Electrical Engineering degrees, but it was also strongly focused on what most people would recognize nowadays as an Electronics degree (Microcontrollers, Digital Electronics, Control Systems, Digital Communications, Power Electronics, etc). To give you an idea, my final project (yes, in my previous university the undergrads had to produce a dissertation and defend it during a public presentation, oral examination, with three examiners) was a system, 100% assembly language, to write messages using composite video signals (TEXvid). My M.Sc., again, had a dissertation and public presentation, but with at least one external examiner. The results from my M.Sc. (Wireless Power Transmission) can be seen on my publications page. During my Master’s degree, I’d attended modules about Stochastic Processes, Advanced Digital Signal Processing, Instrumentation, Optimization and Design of Experiments.
I’ve been an entrepreneur since ever (Engineering Company, Bookshop, Publishing House, Express Printing Services, Website Development, etc) and currently I’m a Ph.D candidate working with Spiking Neural Networks applied to Robot Control (one more time, please, check my publications). I love electronics, programming, robotics and, whenever I can, I also try to design and build new things using wood or 3D printed parts, but sometimes I also enjoy taking old things apart to reuse or just to see what is inside!

Old projects

If you want to see a little bit about some of my old projects, I’ve the perfect post for you:
My Old Projects or Why You Should Document and Share Your Stuff Online

If you want to contact me, the best way is by sending me a message (ricardo.azambuja (a) gmail.com)!