Mechanical engineering · Robotics · Medical devices
I build robots that help in emergencies.
I'm a mechanical engineering master's student at UC San Diego. I design the hardware: frames and mechanisms, motors and their control, and the tests that show whether a design does what the model says. Right now that means rescue robots in the Advanced Robotics and Controls Lab.
About
I'm William Harris, a mechanical engineer and master's student at UC San Diego. I like the part of robotics where an idea has to survive contact with a real machine: frames, mechanisms, motors, and the tests that show whether the model was right.
Most of my time goes to rescue robots. At the Advanced Robotics and Controls Lab, with my thesis advisor Prof. Michael Yip, I built the frame and center-of-mass stage for a mobile manipulator for human-extraction research, a leg that changes shape between fast travel and heavy dragging (ICRA 2026), and the optimization and hexapod design that follow from it.
Before that I spent three years at Triton Robotics, from machining chassis parts to leading the Hero robot's redesign to serving as president of the 80-member team. I'm looking for full-time roles and internships in medical robotics and medical devices, where careful mechanical design and testing decide whether something is safe to use around people.
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GPA 3.68. Coursework in robotics, linear control, haptics, soft robotics, and parametric identification.
A shape-changing 5-bar leg (+83% foot force, ICRA 2026), the frame and center-of-mass stage for a mobile manipulator, and the optimization behind a hexapod rescue robot.
Led an 80-member team and rebuilt the training program, which brought in about 40 new members in a year.
Revived a solar water heater project for an orphanage in Tijuana, and translated between the students and the house parents.
Led the Hero redesign, with an X-drive and a slip-ring turret: +40% rotation speed and +50% targeting accuracy.
Designed and built a lighter Hero chassis with 30% less aluminum tubing and a modular suspension.
Senior capstone: a hexapod rescue-robot leg, sponsored by ARCLab.
Projects
ARCLab · Research · ICRA 2026
Changing link lengths raised measured foot force from 58 N to 106 N on the same motors, and the biped used it to drag a 2.3 kg load.
My part Designed and built the testbed and capstan actuator, wrote the control. Co-first author.
Optimizing the leg geometry and footpath, and designing the 11 kg hexapod it runs on.
My part Wrote the kinematic model and optimizer, and designed the hexapod.
A mobile base with two Franka arms and a moving counterweight for safe human extraction research.
My part Built the frame, the center-of-mass stage, and the soft gripper.
Two generations of a competition robot chassis, then a year leading the 80-member team.
My part Hero robot lead, then team president.
A vacuum-stiffening glove splint that out-held strap splints 1.6 to 4 times in pull-out tests.
My part Solo: design, build, and test.
A handheld bimanual haptic device that lets operators feel contact while teaching robots.
My part Built the first lateral force-feedback prototype.
A ROS 2 car that follows a line and plays a note when it sees a colored marker.
My part Hardware setup and system integration.
A simulated mobile manipulator with a feedforward plus PI controller, run in CoppeliaSim.
FIR and state-space models of a three-cart spring-mass system, from experimental data.
A MATLAB script that sizes shafts under bending and torsion, checked against AI-generated code.
My part Individual project.
Publications
Dynamically Extensible and Retractable Robotic Leg Linkages for Multi-task Execution in Search and Rescue Scenarios
Discovery to Extraction: Biomechanically Safe Manipulation of Human Limbs Using Robotic Manipulation in Search and Rescue Scenarios
Tools
Off the clock
When I'm not in the lab, you'll usually find me on a bike trail, on a badminton court, or testing a new recipe. I lift, I review movies with friends, and I follow Formula 1.