THE
STORY SO FAR
I'm Zhengkun (Steven) Sun, an MEng Mechanical Engineering student at Imperial College London with Dean's List in Year 1 and Year 2 (ranked 8 of 200 in Year 2). With exclusive hands-on experience across mechatronics, robotics, embedded systems, edge AI deployment and precision mechanical design. I love the whole journey from sketch to working hardware — design, prototyping and manufacturing, with great attention to detail.
EXPERIENCE
-
SEP 2026 — PRESENT
General/Embedded Engineering Developer
GENSKY AI Startup · Remote
Built an educational smart-plant kit on M5Stack CoreS3 (ESP32-S3) with multi-sensor monitoring, automated pump and peripheral control. Developed a web portal giving students AI-assisted access to program the device, currently being delivered to high/middle-schools.
-
JUN — AUG 2026
Engineering Research Associate
Imperial Battery Research Group, Earth Science & Engineering
One of 60 fully funded research placements awarded across the whole university. Deployed four optimised U-Net vision models on an NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano to catch defects in battery electrodes at the edge — ONNX Runtime on JetPack 6.2.2, with a local server and an LCD monitoring interface, plus an ESP32-C3 peripheral control subsystem over I2C. Also designed and built a 24-channel, low-cost temperature-controlled coin cell cycling test rig.
-
OCT 2025 — PRESENT
Talks Officer & Technical Lead
Imperial College Robotics Society
Lead-designed the robots for three national autonomous robotics competitions — and won all three, with an order of magnitude more points than second place. Worked across the whole stack: machine vision and algorithms, embedded code, Python, mechanical design and a custom PCB.
-
SEP 2024 — OCT 2025
Payload Engineer
Imperial College London Rocketry
Designed a 3U CubeSat flown inside the main rocket (PLUTO). Collaborated with a Natural History Museum research team on how rocket vibration affects cyanobacteria — the payload carries a spectrometer that talks to the flight controller over I2C.
-
SPRING 2024
Course Lead, Arduino Course
Hongwen School
Initiated and taught a one-term Arduino and circuit-testing course, covering control, temperature & humidity sensing, motor driving, ultrasonic sensing and RFID.
-
SEP 2022 — JUN 2024
Founder, SayBooks
Hongwen School
Founded the school's first second-hand book platform to cut textbook waste — managed the book database and built a mini-program to coordinate sales. Worked alongside senior school management and grew it into a club that still hosts events.
EDUCATION
-
2024 — 2028
MEng Mechanical Engineering
Imperial College London
Year 1 Dean's List, ranked 18 of 210; Year 2 Dean's List, ranked 8 of 200. Courses span mechatronics, stress analysis, mechanics, dynamics, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, design and manufacture, materials, mathematics and computing.
-
2020 — 2024
High School
Hongwen School, Qingdao Campus
A-Levels: A*A*A*A*A* in Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Computer Science. iGCSE: eight A*s. IELTS 7.5. Prefect, House Captain, and founder of the Aurora Cup Debate Challenge.
AWARDS
-
2025 — 2026
🥇 3× National Robotics Competition Winner
Imperial College Robotics Society
Won all three national autonomous robotics competitions entered, each with an order of magnitude more points than second place.
-
2026
🔬 1 of 60 Funded Research Placements
Imperial College London
Competitive, fully funded summer research placement — 60 awarded across the entire university.
-
2026
Year 2 Dean's List
Imperial College London
Ranked 8 of 200 in the Mechanical Engineering cohort.
-
FEB 2026
🥈 2nd of 24 Teams — Makathon 2026
City and Guilds Union
Snowfield rescue-supply robot with an Archimedes' screw drive, designed and built in 48 hours; advanced to the next round.
-
2025
🏆 People's Choice Award
Inclusive Additive Design Challenge
Modular clip-on umbrella stand for wheelchairs, fast-prototyped through six 3D-printed iterations.
-
2025
Year 1 Dean's List
Imperial College London
Ranked 18 of 210 in the Mechanical Engineering cohort.
-
2020 — 2024
🥇 British Physics Olympiad, Round 1 — Global Gold
British Physics Olympiad
-
2020 — 2024
🥇 Senior Mathematics Challenge — Global Gold
UK Mathematics Trust
-
2020 — 2024
🥇 Intermediate Physics Challenge — Global Gold
British Physics Olympiad
-
2020 — 2024
🥈 International Chemistry Quiz — Silver
Royal Australian Chemical Institute
-
2020 — 2024
NHSDLC Debate — National Octofinalist
National High School Debate League of China
SKILLS
CAD & SIMULATION
PROGRAMMING
ELECTRONICS & EMBEDDED
MANUFACTURING
HOBBIES