Hi there, I’m Hinell

Influenced by my family, I’ve been deeply invested in marine life for as long as I can remember. Repeatedly watching documentation about ocean life and identifying fish species were my biggest, and also my favorite pastimes back to the time when I could barely read a full sentence. This experience has embedded a seed of curiosity in my mind. As I grew up, I developed my interest in engineering, while my wish of protecting the marine environment and lives started to sprout. One day, watching cuttlefish ripple their fins or flatworms glide along the seabed, I wondered why most underwater robots look and sound so different from the creatures they study.

That question became this project. Most underwater inspection robots use propellers, which are powerful but come with real problems: they're noisy enough to startle fish, they stir up sediment that clouds cameras and damages the seabed, and their spinning blades can injure nearby animals. I wanted to design a robot that could observe marine life without disturbing it.

Taking inspiration from the undulating side fins of cuttlefish and marine flatworms, I built a robot propelled by a wave-like motion along flexible silicone fins. I went through three prototypes. The first tested whether a linkage-based skeleton could work, and I discovered that printed parts were sticking together, which blocked smooth movement. The second added rocker arms to the linkage and confirmed that the fin motion was smooth and controllable. In the third, I added silicone fins, a camera, an LED light strip for defense, and an ESP32-based control system with a web interface for remote operation. In tank tests, the robot moved smoothly, located a small fish, and approached it without startling it, with far less water disturbance than a propeller.

During the second semester of my junior year, I joined our school’s 2026 IGEM team.

I came into iGEM dry lab knowing almost nothing about ODE modeling. I had little experience with mathematical modeling, and I ended up leading a team that was counting on me to produce something real. Most of what I know now, I learned from zero, in the middle of deadlines, while other people waited on my results.

It was not a smooth process. There were many nights when the model wouldn't behave, the simulation gave nonsense, or I couldn't tell whether the problem was my equations, my parameters, or my understanding. More than once I broke down because I couldn't get a result. Not getting results is a strange kind of pressure: the work is invisible, and you can spend a whole day and have nothing to show for it. I'm still in some of that pressure now.

In the summer of 2025, I attended Cornell University's summer program on animal science and sustainability in animal husbandry. It was my first academic summer camp, and it changed how I think about my interest in animals. Our professor focused on the practical management of livestock, horses, and poultry, and we spent much of our time at Cornell's sheep farm and other local farms, learning hands-on.

Two experiences stood out. At the sheep farm, we practiced lambing using a transparent box with a small opening, through which we guided sheep dolls as if assisting a real birth. Once we were comfortable, we practiced blindfolded to simulate the pressure and limited visibility of real conditions. We even simulated multiple births and difficult deliveries, which taught me how much patience, precision, and calm judgment animal care requires.

I signed up for this course expecting to learn about birds of prey: their habitats, diet, and reproduction. We covered all of that, but the real focus was how raptors and humans are connected. We studied the history of raptor training, how opinions about raptors have changed over time, and how human factors like habitat loss and collisions affect them today.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, we went to Cornell's raptor research and breeding facilities to observe the birds up close, prepare their food, and clean their living spaces. It was routine, humble work, but it showed me what caring for these animals really takes: patience and attention to detail.

At the end of the program, each of us was assigned a species and an individual bird at the Cornell Raptor Center. Mine was Esther, a thirty-year-old golden eagle. She was born with a wing defect that keeps her from ever flying, and she is blind in her left eye. Even so, she is living a good life. Because of safety concerns I didn't work closely with her, but her story taught me that the human-raptor relationship is also about responsibility. A bird like Esther could not survive in the wild, and she has lived three decades because people made that possible.

More than ten years ago, my grandfather showed me how to take care of a goldfish. He taught me to watch the water, to feed lightly, and to notice when something was wrong. When he moved back to his hometown, I kept going on my own. I started with goldfish, then moved on to marine fish, jellyfish, bettas, turtles, and snakes, though fish have always been my main focus.

In my Pioneer research, I designed a DNA-origami "shield" to stop antibody-drug conjugates from releasing their toxic payload too early in the bloodstream. My design was a four-helix DNA bundle closed by protease-cleavable locks, and I wrote a full paper proposing two in vitro experiments to test it, including the FRET diagrams that illustrate them, which I made myself. The topic combined oncology, biochemistry, and nanotechnology, and I had to teach myself much of it from scratch. It was also my first formal research paper, so I was learning academic structure, citation, and argumentation while keeping up with my other coursework.

The process was not smooth. The difficulty of the topic and the pressure of the academic workload made every stage harder, and there were times when I had to rethink my approach entirely. Scheduling was one of my biggest challenges, and when I fell behind, I did not wait for the problem to grow. I communicated often with my PCA to adjust my timeline and stay on track, and I worked with my professor, Professor Nathan Derr, to refine my ideas and strengthen the paper. I also broke the project into weekly milestones and set aside regular blocks of time for reading and drafting, treating each obstacle as a problem to solve.

I also have similar experience from an oncology research project, where I worked on the coding side:

I have played first clarinet in Concordia's Concert Band since my sophomore year, and in my senior year I moved up to Wind Ensemble. Every year we prepare three concerts: Christmas, New Year, and Spring. Each one starts the same way, with a first rehearsal where we have to go over so much. The balance is off. The brass covers the woodwinds, the melody gets buried, and a section that sounds fine alone disappears inside the whole. Nothing is wrong with any single player, but together it does not work yet.

Fixing that taught me to listen before I play. In one rehearsal, our conductor stopped us mid-phrase and asked the clarinets to play softer. I was confused, because I was playing every note correctly. Then he had us listen to the flutes, who carried the melody at that moment, and play again. This time I stopped trying to be heard and started trying to blend. The phrase came together, and the melody I had been covering finally came through. My part was no less important, but in that moment its job was to support.