Travis Chan
Software Engineer. Hackathon Attendee. Nature Lover.
Hi I'm Travis!
I am a computer science student studying in UC Davis, with a passion in software development, machine learning, and the startup world. I participated in my first hackathon in 2020, and I loved it ever since. In the past year, I won the First Prize in Best Use of Confluent Platforms in HackDavis 2021! On a personal note, Lake Tahoe and Eastern Sierras are my favorite summer backpacking spots. I also enjoy cross country running, and I grew up in Hong Kong.
Projects
Computer Vision
Mar - Jun 2022
I enrolled in a Computer Vision course (ECS 174), and my favorite project is to write an image stitching program. I had to find common points that exist in both image, pair them up, and compute their distances using the SIFT algorithm. Then I wrote a RANSAC program to estimate the transformation of mapping one image onto the other. The result would be a panorama that stitches two images smoothly. Apart from this project, I also get to work on projects about image edge detection and convolutional neural networks.
Machine Learning
Mar - Jun 2022
I took a Machine Learning class (ECS 171) this quarter, and I get to learn in depth about regression models, deep neural network, naive bayes classifier, k-means clutering, and dimensionality reduction methods. During the three months, me and 6 other classmates work on a research project on how vehicles' design specifications affect their CO2 emission. We used polynomial regression to explore the relationship between car features such as engine size, fuel consumption, and car make. We also wrote a neural network model to predict a car's CO2 emission level based on their design specifications, and achieved a 83% testing accuracy.
Artificial Intelligence
Feb 2022
In my Artificial Intelligence course (ECS 170), one of the projects is to code an intelligent agent to play the classic Connect4 game. Connect4 is known to be in favor of the first player, so one of the challenges is to make the agent win consistently in both first and second players. Utilising mini-max and alpha-beta pruning algorithms, I wrote my evaluation and succesor functions so that the agent could predict the opponent's moves up to tree depth 3 within a 0.5 second time-out. My agent ends up winning all games against the provided Monte Carlo adversary.
Computer Graphics
Sep - Dec 2021
I took a course in Computer Graphics (ECS 175), where I used WebGL to create 3D objects in the web interface. Final project uses vertex and fragment shaders to rasterize simple objects such as cubes and spheres, as well as complex objects like a teapot and the red telephone booth outside Memorial Union bus stop. Objects can be rotated, resized, and translated using mouse movements. Object properties including lighting and textures are also applied.
MyFluent
Jan 2021
I created this project within 36 hours in HackDavis 2021, where I was awarded the First Prize in Best Use of Confluent Platforms among over 170 projects. MyFluent is a website that streams real-time tweets according to user's input. It builds usable "topics" in an online event-streaming platform called Confluent Kafka. Other developers can use these topics for further data manipulation such as training machine learning models.
Spendings App
Jul 2020
I created this mobile app to keep track of my spendings and offer insights about my consumption pattern, such as how frequent will I need to replenish groceries. This is my first time doing mobile development. I use Expo to publish my project, but I could not quite make it public to everyone.
Soccer Blog
Jun - Jul 2020
I have been a big fan of soccer (or football in Brit. English), and Chelsea is my favorite team. I started this project after the season resumed in June 2020 in light of the pandemic. The website keeps track of every match Chelsea played and my ratings on the players. I am able to watch every game since it's summer, and hopefully I can continue this when school starts.
HikeGest
May - Jun 2020
As a nature lover, I always enjoy hiking. I was joined with 2 other teammates that I met in Backyard Hacks, a virtual hackathon, and work on a website that recommends which hiking trails near you have the best weather conditions.
My Spotifyy
Mar - Apr 2020
I love listening to music, and I always wanted to know more about my music taste through numbers. That's why I created this website where users can check their top artists, tracks, and genres. Users can also explore artists and learn more about their popularity.
Data Visualisation of NBA2K League
Feb 2020
My team and I chose this idea because one of the tracks of SacHacks 2020 was E-sports, and the E-sports market is growing rapidly. We performed statistical analysis on each team and player of the league, and display their rankings and comparisons based on user's input (such as number of rebounds or blocks).
Davis Lost and Found
Jan 2020
The story of this idea was that I found so much posts on Facebook about students' lost items, be it a HydroFlask full of memorable stickers or a Walmart bike. We created this website in HackDavis 2020 for Davis students to recover their possessions.
