MOMCHIL KOLEV

CV, Email


SHARO (Quadruped)
2023 V1: 
Sharo is a 3D-printed quadruped robot whose job is to patrol the forests in order to combat illegal logging and wildfires. Sharo can traverse difficult terrains, detect fires, and catch perpetrators with face detection. It is equipped with a GPS for navigation and to alert authorities of illegal forest activities, IMU for attitude estimation, and an ultrasonic sensor for collision avoidance. Due to the use of hobby electronics and 3D printing, it is affordable, making it ideal for deployment at scale. This also makes it more accessible for educational institutions from less developed regions as an engaging introduction to legged robotics. It can also be used as an affordable R&D platform for scientists and engineers. We demonstrate this capability by implementing highly optimized inverse kinematics and a novel approach to defining motion paths based on Bézier curves.

V2: 
Goal: A low-cost modular educational tool for learning robotics.
Awards:

Best Model in Category
(FISSION)

Superior Yellow Ribbon
(Vienna Science Fair)

Best In Category Physics and Engineering (Vienna Science Fair)

Best Of All Seniors Special Award
(Vienna Science Fair)

Best Overall Audience Award
(ACS Science Fair)

First Place In Hardware Projects
(ROBODAYS’23)
Second Place
(National Competition "Young Talents" 2024)

Part. in Milest Expo-Sciences Europe 2024
FIRST Robotics Competition
2023-2024 2023: Stamat is the robot we (ACS Phoenix #9089) built for the 2023 season of the FIRST Robotics Competition. With it, we participated in the Istanbul Regional competition (50 teams, 5+ countries) as the first Bulgarian team. Stamat was built in only 2 months, using parts primarily from the local hardware store. It is equipped with a 2-axis gripper that uses pneumatics and is suitable to complete all the given challenges. 

2024: 
Robot name: Deivkata
Placement: 25/51
 Events:

FRC Bosphorus Regional 2024

FRC Istanbul Regional 2023

The Artsfest Fundraising Event - ACS

ROBODAYS’24 - TU Sofia

ROBODAYS’23 - TU Sofia

Hello Space 2024 - Sofia Tech Park

Hello Space 2023 - Sofia Tech Park

Robotics Strategy Forum 2023 - Sofia Tech Park

Industrial Tech Forum 2023 - Inter Expo Center

Muzeiko - November 2023

Pchelichka (A Robotic Bee)
2024 "Pchelichka" is a robotic bee (microdrone) capable of artificially pollinating plants through contact. А swarm of such bees can pollinate entire fields and vertical farms to save hours of manual labor. A positively charged material like wool is mounted at the front of the drone to collect pollen. We use computer vision to guide the drone and collect information about the plants. 

Still in progress
 Awards:

Best Overall Audience Award 
(ACS Science Fair)

Best Model in Category 
(FISSION)

Para Robotics Incubator

eink.cam
2024 Designed the body of eink.cam

eink.cam is an experimental digital camera with a color eInk display. 
 http://eink.cam

FPV Drones
2019-2024I've built dozens of custom FPV (First-Person View) drones, including 3" and 5" racing drones, 5" freestyle drones, 3" and 1.6”, 2.5”, 3.5" cinewhoop drones, 7.5" long-range drone, 13” X-Class, 65mm and 75mm tinywhoop drones, and 5” Y6 drone. They are capable of more precise but also faster flying than the traditional cinematic drones.
Events:

Tiny Whoop - Opening Season '22/23

Steldy DroneArena Expo FPV Race KDC Organized

2024 MultiGP Global Qualifier Sofia

2023 MultiGP Global Qualifier Sofia 1

2023 MultiGP Global Qualifier Sofia 2

FAI Drone Club Varna 2023 CUP
ROUV (Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle)
2021 ROUV (Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle) is an unoccupied, highly maneuverable underwater machine with the dimensions of two regular computers. It can be used to explore water depths while being operated wirelessly from far outside on solid land. With more than one hour of battery life, it provides the pilot with a live video for gathering information about what's happening and where he is going.
 Awards:

Best in Category
(FISSION)

Red Ribbon
(Vienna Science Fair)

 Best Overall Audience Award
(ACS Science Fair)
DC Explorer (Rover with robotic arm)
2022DC Explorer is a creative approach to represent the applications of electromagnetic induction, and more specifically, of DC motors and servos. The model is a remotely operated vehicle with a robot arm on top. Converting electric energy into mechanical, it’s able to achieve movement in all directions. Its purpose is to serve missions that might be dangerous for people or even impossible, like observing radioactive or unreachable places. It is based on multiple open-source projects, which where adapted and expanded.

 Awards:

Best in Category
(FISSION)

Excellent Blue Ribbon
(Vienna Science Fair)

Best Overall Audience Award
(ACS Science Fair)
Self-fastening Shoes Using Artificial Muscles
2023Working prototype of shoes that self-fasten. Different from the already existing ones, which use laces that fasten themselves, the design implements smart textiles (UNSW) driven by artificial muscles. The main benefit of that is that the shoe can be resized in its entirety based solely on the person’s foot. This is going to turn mass-produced shoes into personalized ones. The final model will be packed with many other features, such as automatically detecting when a person’s foot is inside of it, which immediately triggers the mechanism, an accurate step counter, a foot pressure analyzer, and a mobile control app.


Go-karts Restoration
2023I made a complete restoration of two old go-karts, which were in really poor condition. After I disassembled them, I had to clean everything, including a ton of mud and leaked motor oil, remove all the rust, do a bunch of welding, repaint the frame, restore the motors, and reassemble everything together. Now, they are fully functional and quite fast.

Other Projects
Other projects I’ve done:
- Mini sumo robot
- Line follower robot
- Maze solver robot
- Battlebot 
- Sphere robots
- Custom Bench Power Supply
- Custom Radio Receiver Module
- Custom 3D Printer
- Transperent Nintendo DS
- Paintball Marker Barrels
- Radio Transmitter Stick-Ends
- Digital Camera with E-Ink Display shell 
- Ethereum Mining Rig
- Bike Dynamo-Charging Batteries shell
- Double valve cap for SmallFoot Snowshoes

Momchil Kolevmomchil.kolev@yale.edu