Alvaro islas
Welcome
Thank you for dropping by. I love to learn and experiment on my own.
About me
bienvenido!
Hello! My name is Alvaro Islas and I am an "always learning" Electrical Engineer who likes to learn by doing. Feel free to look around and if you want to connect with me feel free to either use the email icon or the reply icon on the page.

| NASA Mission | Job | Website | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| N.C.A.S. (NASA Community College Scholars) | Operations Engineer | NCAS | 2023 |
| NASA CubeSat at California State University, Long Beach | Communications Engineer | CSULB CubeSat Acceptance 2024 | 2024-2025 |
| NASA CubeSat at California State University, Long Beach | Lead Communications Engineer | NA | 2025-2026 |
NASA has ignited my passion for space exploration. Initially lost in my STEM pursuits, I found direction through participation in N.C.A.S. (NASA Community College Scholars) in early 2023. Receiving an acceptance was unexpected, but it thrust me to prove myself. This journey primed in reaching the final mission and collaborating with an exceptional team and mentor, resulting in successfully accomplishing and winning, however our true prize in the end was a confirmation that NASA has a place for us all.This experience propelled me to join aerospace clubs upon transferring to California State University, Long Beach in Fall 2023. In my first semester, our club ambitiously aimed to launch the campus's first cube satellite. In less than four months, we conducted trade studies and crafted a proposal for NASA's CubeSat initiative. On April 3rd, 2024, we received the thrilling news of our selection.Overall, I am profoundly grateful for the opportunities afforded by NASA. It has unlocked unforeseen avenues and instilled in me a drive to pursue even greater feats—all stemming from that welcome letter from N.C.A.S. Huston, we are a go for take off.
projects
Currently, there are a few projects I’m diving deep into, especially those at the intersection of tech and biology, which push me to grow my engineering expertise.The project taking most of my time is a non-invasive glucose monitor.

USRP GNU Radio

Radar see through wall

Inductive Wireless LED

Microphone Amplifier

Non-invasive Glucose monitor
Design
CAD
Designing with CAD programs is a new feat I've decided to take. I started to build a guided rail from parts of my 3d printed that were replaced. I am making use of the wheels, and hardware and designing the pieces I don't have. That led towards designing my own mounts for my personal projects viewed in the gallery.

Machine Learning
Linear Modeling
Python is a useful and easy language to learn machine learning. With the combination of Matplotlib, Keras, Numpy, and other libraries I'm working on autonomous driving simulation.
Veteran
I was in the US ARMY for 12 years and manage to be part of a wonderful family. I meet a lot of beautiful people whose memory I will always carry with me. The Army taught me a lot, but the number one thing I will always carry with me is always take care of your soldiers.
Gracias!
Thank you!
I appreciate you stopping by and feel free to contact me with either method that you see fit and I will respond when possible.
Thank you
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Let me know
OnShape
Autocad
Projects
R-Map



Contribution
R-Map is a low-cost, compact radar scanning and display system designed to detect and track a moving target through standard wooden walls. Engineered for portability, it is intended to be mounted on the chest area of tactical vest and operate as a self power device.My primary contribution focused on the mechanical design and system integration. Using OnShape, I developed the full 3D CAD assembly, including the enclosure, protective housing, rotational hinge system for display, and a secure mounting interface for wearable deployment. The design prioritized durability, compactness, and ease of integration with the embedded electronics and power system.


contributions
In this project, we focused on developing and implementing a wireless communication using GNU Radio, centered on OFDM modulation with Alamouti coding and space-time block coding (STBC). My contribution was to integrating the Rx chain, with particular attention to the precise synchronization of pilots, symbols, and words to ensure reliable reception. By aligning these elements carefully, we improved timing and channel estimation performance, allowing the system to better handle real-world impairments like noise and fading. We were able to simulate how combining OFDM with diversity techniques such as Alamouti STBC in a GNU Radio environment can significantly strengthen link reliability.

GNU RADIO USRP



FPGA
Troubleshooting
I started working on FPGA for thermal and AI tracking, however, the FPGA is timing out on the USB connection whenever I try to upload the code. The FPGA board is the Butterstick by Greg Daill and the orange board is called the Tigard Protocol Tool. It's an open-source FT2232H-based, multi-protocol, and multi-voltage tool. I'm going to use the Tigard board to bypass the USB connection and update the bootloader.

Completed
Light up Armor
This project is growing and changing every year. This originally started as a simple piece to add towards my ren-fair outfit. But, I figure I could do better. So I combined some parts from Adafruit (Magnetic Connector, Adafruit Feather M4 Express, and Adafruit NeoPXL8)

M4 Express

NeoPXL8

All assembled
Using Arduino IDE I am able to use some of Adafruit's existing code to suit my needs.


Keyboard
Corne 5-column
This split keyboard is from typeractive.xyz is a good kit to understand how to build and customize the keyboard layout. The board uses a nice!nano v2 which runs nicely on the ZMK Firmware.



















