Waive
A web app that turns intimidating government notices into plain language and a clear next step. Built with three teammates in 36 hours.
Electrical Engineering · McGill University
Skyler Xiao
I build things that sit between software and hardware — web apps, firmware, and small tools that make tedious work disappear.
About
I'm a second-year Electrical Engineering student who spends most of his time somewhere between a breadboard and a text editor.
I like problems where the answer has to actually work — where a thing either lights up or it doesn't. Most of what I build starts as a small annoyance I wanted to remove.
Off the clock I play varsity badminton, solve cubes faster than is strictly reasonable, and take a camera most places I go.
Experience — tap an entry for detail
Varsity Badminton
McGill Athletics
2025 — now
- Train four mornings a week at 6am around a full engineering course load.
- Compete in the RSEQ university league.
- Where I learned that consistency beats intensity — on a court and everywhere else.
Specialised Sports Instructor
Glen Abbey Community Centre
2023 — 2025
- Designed and ran a weekly youth badminton program of 200+ members.
- Coached players aged 4 to 65, across every level from first racket to competitive.
- Rebuilt attendance and player tracking in Excel, so it stopped being done by hand.
Selected projects — 4 of 6
Subly
A sublease marketplace with map-based discovery, auth, and listing management — for students who move twice a year.
Alarm clock, from scratch
An ESP-32 alarm clock — simulated in Wokwi, then soldered. Firmware, enclosure, and a snooze button that actually feels good to press.
SnapTeX
A Chrome extension that screenshots scrolling pages and converts LaTeX into readable Unicode — including the malformed kind.
Awards
2026
2nd place · STEMINATE Hacks
Out of 40 teams, for Waive.
Certification
Emergency First Aid & CPR/AED Level C
Plus HIGH FIVE PHCD certification for youth program delivery.
Elsewhere — a different perspective
Contact
Say hello.
I'm always up for a conversation about embedded systems, a project that needs a hand, or where to eat in Montréal.