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Robotics & Systems: From a Piano-Playing Robot to Custom Embedded Linux

Jul 23
2 min read

Before the production firmware and ML work, there were robots — a lot of them. These projects are where I learned to make hardware do something visible and slightly audacious, and they still shape how I approach systems today.

Piano-playing robot (iRGT, ESAB — 2012)

A robot that reads sheet music and plays it on a real piano. With no elegant actuator budget, I hacked 12V relays to act as mechanical fingers striking the keys. It competed at the International Robot Got Talent (iRGT) competition at ESAB. Watch the demo.

Line-following robot with path finding (ICME Project Show, BUET — 2011)

A line-following robot extended with obstacle avoidance and path-finding, shown at the ICME Project Show at BUET. Watch the demo.

Color sensing system (2014)

A system that detects a surface's color and computes its RGB proportions for color matching. See the project.

Custom Embedded Linux with Yocto (2025)

More recently, I built a custom Embedded Linux distribution for the STM32F429 Discovery board using the Yocto Project — configuring the build system, board support, and root filesystem from the ground up rather than relying on a prebuilt image.

R&D hardware at TechShop Bangladesh (2015–2018)

As a Senior Research Engineer I proposed and led a stream of robotics, consumer-electronics, and embedded projects, and taught the underlying microcontroller concepts.

  • Robots: Gesture-controlled, maze-solving, and Android-controlled robots.

  • Modules: AC voltage dimmers, frequency counters, RGB sensors, and Arduino-based boards.

  • Consumer products: RF-controlled appliances, lab trainer boards, and smart testing devices.

  • Software: Barcode readers on Raspberry Pi + OpenCV, and a temperature-logging system in C# and WPF.

Tech stack: ARM Cortex, Embedded Linux, Yocto, ESP32, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, OpenCV, C#, WPF, AutoCAD, Altium.

 
 
 

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