Jerry Zheng

CS student at the University of Utah passionate about software development.

Research

Preview of the research poster Adaptive Break Threshold Algorithm for Electronic Grip Gauge. Open poster (PDF, 8 MB)

Utah NeuroRobotics Lab, 2025 – 2026

Adaptive Break Threshold Algorithm for Electronic Grip Gauge

Stroke patients practice moving a handheld device that "breaks" if squeezed too hard, but the break point was fixed for everyone. I worked on the device's Flutter app and built an adaptive threshold: a weighted mean of the patient's latest and historical peak grip force, lowered by a percentage based on difficulty, so each patient is challenged at their own level.

Preview of the research poster Detecting Shifts in the Human Experience Using Multi-Modal Models. Open poster (PDF, 0.6 MB)

Utah Cyber-Physical Systems Security Lab, 2024 – 2025

Detecting Shifts in the Human Experience Using Multi-Modal Models

Using recordings of people walking the UCLA campus, we embedded video with BLIP and audio with YAMNet, clustered each with DBSCAN, and found change points with Ruptures. The shifts found in each sense lined up closely with each other and with hand-labeled events. A Utah Science and Engineering Fair finalist out of 150+ participants.

Projects

Gustav, a red-bumpered robot numbered 3006 with a clear polycarbonate shell and a turret on top, surrounded by yellow foam balls.

Gustav

2026, REBUILT, 32–10–0

A turret shooter that scores while driving at full speed.

Gustav

2026, REBUILT, 32–10–0

  • Shoot-on-the-move: a secant-method solver iterates time of flight against an interpolated flight-time table to aim at a virtual target, offset by field-relative chassis velocity plus the off-center shooter's tangential velocity from yaw rate
  • Absolute turret homing from two CANcoders on coprime 15T/16T gears, resolved with the Chinese Remainder Theorem
  • TalonFX turret on Motion Magic with shortest-path wraparound bounded by cable-loom limits, plus yaw-rate feedforward to cancel chassis rotation
  • Distance-indexed interpolation tables for hood angle and flywheel RPM, with separate hub and lob tables selected by field zone; the hood auto-stows near the trench
  • Four PhotonVision cameras, including one on the turret with a dynamic robot-to-camera transform, fused into the swerve pose estimator using multi-tag PnP with ambiguity and distance rejection
  • Superstructure state machine, Choreo autos, SysId-characterized swerve, and AdvantageKit logging
  • Championship Division Winner Archimedes
  • Regional Winner Utah
  • Industrial Design Award Idaho
Season results
Gustav's 2026 events
EventRankPlayoff finish
Idaho35th
Utah31st (won the event)
Archimedes371st (won the division), then Einstein
Bubbles, a red-bumpered robot numbered 3006 with a tall elevator, a jointed arm, and a spiked roller intake, lit by purple LEDs.

Bubbles

2025, REEFSCAPE, 28–13–0

An elevator and arm that score coral on all four reef levels and handle algae.

Bubbles

2025, REEFSCAPE, 28–13–0

  • Collision-safe superstructure: command sequences stow the arm and wrist, wait for their setpoints, then raise the elevator before deploying the arm
  • Dual-TalonFX leader/follower elevator on Motion Magic with static gravity feedforward; the arm runs on a FusedCANcoder with cosine gravity compensation
  • Wrist end effector with independent coral and algae rollers, two CANrange time-of-flight sensors for game-piece detection, and TorqueCurrentFOC hold current to grip algae
  • Reef auto-align: finds the closest reef face from odometry, lets the driver pick the left or right branch, and PIDs to the scoring pose
  • Limelight MegaTag2 localization seeded with gyro yaw and fused into the swerve pose estimator
  • Choreo AutoFactory routines, including three-coral L4 autos from the ground and the source
  • Innovation in Control Award Utah
Season results
Bubbles' 2025 events
EventRankPlayoff finish
Utah83rd
Idaho83rd
Milstein65th
Hilbert, a low blue-bumpered robot numbered 3006 with an angled flywheel shooter, driving fast across the field.

Hilbert

2024, CRESCENDO, 31–14–0

A fast, low swerve robot with a pivoting flywheel shooter.

Hilbert

2024, CRESCENDO, 31–14–0

  • Pose-based auto-aim: computes distance and height to the speaker from the fused pose to set the pivot angle, while locking the swerve heading onto the target
  • Dual NEO Vortex pivot on an absolute encoder with PID plus cosine gravity feedforward; split top and bottom flywheel speeds for amp and lob shots
  • Note homing: an intake-facing Limelight's target offset and bounding box feed a law-of-cosines heading solve to drive onto notes
  • Playing With Fusion time-of-flight sensor in the indexer to detect when a note is staged
  • Four Limelights running MegaTag2 with fiducial ID filtering, fused into CTRE swerve odometry
  • 54 PathPlanner autos built from named commands, with LED states for driver feedback
  • Regional Winner Colorado
Season results
Hilbert's 2024 events
EventRankPlayoff finish
Utah94th
Colorado21st (won the event)
Hopper185th

1st place, T-Mobile track, DubHacks 2026

Formly

One button that fills out any form from data you already have.

A business adds a "Fill with Formly" button to its form. You connect your files, Google, or iCloud once, and Formly builds a private profile of the facts forms ask for, each linked to its source. It fills the form, shows where every answer came from, and asks before sharing anything sensitive. Our team won the T-Mobile track out of more than 1,100 hackers.

  • Next.js
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Gemini API
  • SQLite

Browser game, 2026

Starting22

An American football franchise game. Run plays live from snap to whistle, then run a team within a 32-team league: 45-man roster and depth chart, salary cap, draft, free agency, and trades.

  • JavaScript
  • HTML
  • CSS

Desktop app, 2026

UltimateClassManager

A manager for an art teacher: student profiles with balances, class packages, payments, and calendars for both the teacher and each student. Data persists between sessions.

  • Java
  • Swing

Experience

  1. 2026 – now

    Instructor

    Mathnasium, Sugar House

    Teach math to K–12 students in small groups, closing skill gaps and building problem-solving confidence.

  2. 2025 – 2026

    Student Researcher

    Utah NeuroRobotics Lab

    Built the Flutter app for the Electronic Grip Gauge, a stroke therapy device, and integrated an adaptive threshold that personalizes rehabilitation.

  3. 2024 – 2025

    Student Researcher

    Utah Cyber-Physical Systems Security Lab

    Developed, trained, and tested a multi-modal ML model that detects shifts in human experience linked to memory formation.

  4. 2022 – 2026

    Software Captain, Drive Team

    FRC Team 3006, West High School

    Programmed mechanisms, controls, and autonomous routines. Shipped hotfixes in the pit at competitions and mentored 20+ newer programmers.

About

I'm a computer science freshman at the University of Utah. Robotics is where I started programming, and it shaped how I work: I like problems where the code has to hold up outside the screen, whether that's a robot on the field or a device in a rehab clinic. I also teach math at Mathnasium, where I help K–12 students build problem-solving skills.

Skills

  • Java
  • C++
  • Python
  • JavaScript
  • TypeScript
  • Dart
  • HTML/CSS
  • Git
  • Flutter
  • Next.js
  • WPILib
  • Control theory
  • UI/UX design

Certifications

  • International Baccalaureate Diploma2026
  • Certiport IT Specialist in Java2026
  • Certiport IT Specialist in Python2026
  • Knowledge Pillars Java Coding Specialist2026
  • AP Scholar with Distinction2025
  • Utah Advanced Programming Certification2025

Let's talk.

I'm open to internships and research opportunities in software and robotics. Email is the best way to reach me.