About Me

Hi! My name is Max Rucker, a robotics master’s student at the University of Michigan. I’m from Boyds, Maryland, a small suburban town only 40 minutes from Washington, DC. I have been interested in Robotics ever since high school when I was a member of the FRC team we had. I was the programming lead for a year and was also invested in the electrical team as well. Once I went to Michigan as an undergrad, I quickly declared my major as robotics the day registration opened for it. Throughout my time at Michigan, I have taken a strong liking to underwater robotics specifically in the sensing and reasoning portion of it. This includes SLAM, vision perception, path planning, and more. I have also learned to enjoy control systems and more dynamics since getting involved in marine robotics. After graduating, I stayed at the University of Michigan for the robotics SUGS program to get my master's degree in robotics. I hope to use this degree to research marine robotics further and go into a related industry. I am currently involved in the Field Robotics Group researching underwater SLAM using machine learning. Outside of class, some hobbies of mine are playing guitar and golf. I am also involved in Triangle, the engineering fraternity on campus where I was president during the 2022-2023 term.