fun

Some Fun Projects

Local MCTS Motion Planning Code ↗

A small project I built for my Robotics Ph.D. qualifying exam. I explored local motion planning with passively deformable obstacles, where limited contact may be useful rather than treated as an immediate collision.

I implemented an MCTS-based local planner for a non-holonomic mobile robot. In the simplified prototype, the robot can push an obstacle while exploring a route, continue if the path opens, or retreat and replan when the deformation limit is reached. The idea was motivated by settings such as ICUs, where objects like tubing may tolerate limited contact but hazardous deformation should be avoided.

Procedural Trees & Creatures

CS 8803: Procedural Content Generation · Prof. Greg Turk

Two course projects exploring procedural content generation in Unity. For trees, I implemented randomized growth rules supporting willow-like, plagiotropic, and orthotropic structures, with controllable branching, tropism, leaf layouts, and age-dependent growth. I also added obstacle-aware generation, allowing branches to adapt their growth around geometric obstacles.

For creatures, I used the Marching Cubes algorithm to generate continuous meshes with shared vertices for smooth normals and color transitions. Random seeds vary body proportions, colors, eyes, and accessories, including animated halos, horns, and eye styles. The torso and legs form a single mesh. And I do think they are very cute.

A Few Other Things

Track & Field

I competed in high jump throughout my undergraduate years at Tsinghua and served as vice captain of the student (non-varsity) track and field team. I won the Men’s Group A high jump title at the Ma John Cup three years in a row. My personal best is 1.80 m (about 5 ft 11 in) — the video shows it.

I also competed in the Men’s Group A hurdles, winning my preliminary heat and finishing third overall. Please also enjoy my rather questionable hurdling technique in the video — perhaps as an example of what not to do: don’t jump over the hurdles like I did; run over them.