I am Michael Szpakowicz, a Computer Science Graduate specializing in Robotics and Machine Learning

I am also known as Spok within circles of friends and colleagues.

Michael (Spok) Szpakowicz

I am Spok, and I inspire people by making robots!

When I got involved with my high school robotics team, I became enamoured with the prospect of designing complex physical systems controlled by intelligent algorithms. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of sharing my passion as a lead of many tech groups and a teaching assistant at the University of Toronto, and later, while starting the campus' very own robotics club. By the end of my studies, I became very excited about machine learning as well, and I am constantly looking for problems that would benefit from the intersection of these two fields.

Publications

Education

HBSc in Computer Science, 2020

University of Toronto

Interests

Mobile Robotics
Machine Learning

Experience

PREVIOUS ASSOCIATIONS THAT HELPED DEVELOP MY SKILLS

Coursera Self-Driving Car Expert

University of Toronto / Coursera

May 2022 – Present Toronto

Worked with Professor Steven Waslander and Professor Jonathan Kelly on reviewing, amending, and improving their Self-Driving Cars Specialization on Coursera.

Robotics Software Engineer

BeaverBot

Jul 2021 – Present Mississauga

Engineered a golf push cart that follows people using TensorRT to run YOLOv5 on a Jetson Nano. Designed a monocular part localization system in Python with for pick-and-place solutions using OpenCV’s implementation of SIFT. Created a restaurant waiter robot using RTAB SLAM running on ROS with a LiDAR and RGBD camera fusion.

Computer Organization Teaching Assistant

University of Toronto

Jan 2020 – Apr 2020 Mississauga

Led tutorials, assisted during lectures, held office hours, prepared course materials, marked tests and assignments, and taught the following skills:

Computer Organization and Architecture
Boolean Expressions and Logic Gates
Design and Analysis of Combinational and Sequential Circuits
MIPS Assembly and related skills

Introduction to Programming Teaching Assistant

University of Toronto

Sep 2019 – Dec 2019 Mississauga

Led tutorials, assisted during lectures, held office hours, prepared course materials, marked tests and assignments, and taught Python coding, the basics of complexity analysis, sorting algorithms, and searching algorithms.

Mobile Robotics Teaching Assistant

University of Toronto

Aug 2019 – Sep 2019 Mississauga

Assembled, configured, and tested 5 mobile robotic platforms.

Computer Organization Teaching Assistant

University of Toronto

Jan 2019 – Apr 2019 Mississauga

Led tutorials, assisted during lectures, held office hours, prepared course materials, marked tests and assignments, and taught the following skills:

Computer Organization and Architecture
Boolean Expressions and Logic Gates
Design and Analysis of Combinational and Sequential Circuits
MIPS Assembly and related skills

Software Design Teaching Assistant

University of Toronto

Sep 2018 – Dec 2018 Mississauga

Led tutorials, assisted during lectures, held office hours, prepared course materials, marked tests and assignments, and taught the following skills:

Java Programming
Design Patterns
Git Version Control

Animation Engineer

Little Canada

Jun 2018 – Sep 2018 Mississauga

Created multiple Arduino libraries in C++ for making many complex, interleaved animations using servo motors, DC motors, LEDs, stepper motors, and a variety of sensors.