สวัสดี hello and welcome

Nan

Piyatida Luangongoes by Nan

Engineering for
people nobody designed for

I notice people whose needs go unseen, build AI hardware for them, and share what I learn. Student at International School Bangkok, Class of 2027.

AI hardwarewearable roboticsbiomechanicssustainabilityfilm photographyrestaurant hopping

typeof NaN is 'number'. Nan is an engineer.

in
Right now

Running EcoBin's pilot: collaborating with the local district office and collecting used cooking oil from vendors. Also building HaptiHeal v2 with flowIO and drafting a research manuscript at Siriraj Hospital.

Portrait of Nan, smiling with arms crossed against a purple backdrop
$ python nan.py
noticed street-food vendors, caregivers, patients, rural students
built EcoBin (AI oil-recycling kiosk), HaptiHeal (rehab glove)
won MIT Global Appathon 2026, MIT Media Lab hackathon
next scroll down to see how

nan.origin()

Where it started

Before the robots and the research, there was a market and a house.

I grew up near the 18 Court Market, surrounded by people who worked hard and were rarely designed for.

Every day I passed the vendors, stalls and smells you remember most. A moment that showed you how hard their work was, or what they had to improvise around.

When my grandfather designed our family home, he let me help, floor by floor. What you worked on together, and one decision you remember making. What that taught you about designing around the people who will live with it.

That is still how I start: notice who will actually use something, then build for them.

nan.journey() where my work has taken me

  1. BangkokBART Lab, Siriraj Hospital, EcoBin's first deployment, MIT Media Lab hackathon
  2. Rural ThailandTechLit smart farms and workshops across 4 regions
  3. New Haven, CTMaterials research at Yale's Schroers Lab
  4. Cambridge, MAPresented EcoBin at the MIT App Inventor Global Education Summit
  5. Dallas, TXRepresented Thailand at the VEX Robotics World Championship
$ nan.impact()6 results
vendors_linked200+# EcoBin, across 5 districts
oil_recycled_L150+# EcoBin, first 6 months
papers_published1# IEEE i-CREATE 2025, BART Lab
students_taught500+# TechLit, 4 regions of Thailand
club_members10 → 25+# Hearts and Hands, since 2025
appathon_field2,176# participants, 141 countries; we won

nan.notice()

Notice

Research where I learned to measure what usually gets missed.

Dec 2024 – Dec 2025Center for Biomedical & Robotics Technology, Mahidol University

Student Researcher, BART Lab

Ground Reaction Force Analysis of Robot-Assisted Walking Using Inertial Sensors

questionHow much does a support robot really unload a patient's legs?

  • Coded a wearable IMU-based ground reaction force (GRF) model, with signal filtering and gait-event detection, to replace laboratory force plates.
  • Applied it to robot-assisted walking trials: the body-weight-support robot cut peak GRF by 28.9%, and 90% of patients improved meaningfully.
  • Co-authored the paper and presented it at IEEE i-CREATE 2025, before HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.
Read the IEEE paperBART Lab
Nan standing in front of the i-CREATe 2025 conference backdrop in Bangkok
At IEEE i-CREATe 2025, Bangkok
Nan calibrating the IMU sensors on a laptop before gait data collection at BART Lab
Calibrating sensors for gait data collection
Jul – Aug 2025Materials Science & Mechanical Engineering, Yale University

Summer Research Intern, Schroers Lab

Pigment effects on hydrogel–silk adhesion for wearables

questionCan hydrogel replace stitches in wearable textiles?

  • Designed an independent study on how pigment affects hydrogel–silk adhesion; measured peak load and crack propagation with Instron tensile testing.
  • Compared the flexibility of spring steel, stainless steel and bulk metallic glass (BMG).
  • Calibrated salt-bath heat retention to make thermal processing more consistent.

Supervised by Prof. Jan Schroers and PhD candidate Lily Behnke

Schroers Lab
Nan preparing hydrogel samples at a lab bench at Yale
Preparing hydrogel samples
Rows of pigmented hydrogel samples drying on racks, ready for Instron testing
Pigmented hydrogel samples for Instron tests
Bulk metallic glass strips sorted in a parts box
Bulk metallic glass (BMG) samples
Jun 2026 – nowSiriraj Hospital

Student Researcher, SiNMD

Quality of life after power-wheelchair provision in pediatric neuromuscular disease

questionDo power wheelchairs change a child's quality of life?

  • Drafting a manuscript on a prospective cohort study at the Siriraj Center of Neuromuscular Disease.
  • Quality of life measured with the Thai PedsQL at baseline and 6–12 months after children receive power wheelchairs.

Manuscript in preparation

Jun 2023Dinsaw Robotics, Bangkok

Summer Research Intern, Dinsaw Robotics

Object classification for healthcare service robots

Dinsaw Robotics builds service robots for healthcare settings.

  • Trained YOLO object-classification models, using Roboflow to label, augment and manage the image datasets.
YOLORoboflow

nan.build()

Build

Things I made after noticing a need.

EcoBin

Founder & concept originator, team of 6

Sept 2023 – now

An AI kiosk where street-food vendors drop off used cooking oil for recycling instead of pouring it away.

  • Trained my own YOLOv11 model to validate oil; deployed at a Bangkok subdistrict office.
  • 200+ vendors and recyclers across 5 districts, 150L+ of oil in 6 months.

Youth Team Winner, MIT Global Appathon 2026Finalist, AI Innovator Award (CMKL University)Semi-finalist, National Software Competition (NSTDA)

YOLOv11Raspberry Pi 5Solenoid valvesUltrasonic
EcoBin websiteMIT Global AppathonFeatured by MIT App Inventor
Nan and the EcoBin team holding the prototype at the MIT App Inventor Global Education Summit
Presenting at the MIT Global Education Summit, July 2026
Nan with her teammate and a judge at the AI Innovation Summit 2025 sign
Presenting at the AI Innovation Summit 2025
Nan and her teammate with two hosts in front of the CMKL University backdrop
AI Innovation Summit 2025, CMKL University
Nan and her teammate receiving certificates on stage at the AI Innovator Award pitch competition
AI Innovator Award pitch, Sustainability Expo
The deployed EcoBin kiosk with its bilingual Thai and English wrap
Deployed EcoBin kiosk
Nan standing beside the fifth version of the EcoBin kiosk
With EcoBin v5
Nan meeting with a local district officer, with the EcoBin app open on a laptop
Working with the local district office
EcoBin version 4: touchscreen on top and the tank and wiring inside
EcoBin v4: touchscreen and internals
Global Appathon showcase
Global Appathon pitch
First iteration demo
See how it works

One drop-off, step by step

HaptiHeal

Founder, inventor & project lead, team of 3

Sept 2025 – now

A soft-robotic glove that records a therapist's movements and guides a caregiver to repeat them at home.

  • DTW aligns each attempt to the reference; an RL agent and LLM give haptic and spoken corrections.
  • Building v2 with MIT Media Lab's flowIO soft actuation.

1st place, MIT Media Lab AI & Robotics Hackathon

EeonTex flexSingleTactIMUESP32DTWRLLLMflowIO
Nan and her HaptiHeal teammates with the glove prototype at the AI and Robotics Hackathon 2025
The HaptiHeal team with the glove prototype
Nan holding the Visionaries Pitching winner sign and trophy at the AI and Robotics Hackathon 2025
Winner, Visionaries Pitching
Nan presenting the HaptiHeal poster to judges at the hackathon
Presenting HaptiHeal to the judges
The HaptiHeal glove prototype connected to a laptop showing a live 3D hand model
Glove demo with a live 3D hand model
Hackathon pitch
Prize announcement
See how it works

How the glove compares two movements

Therapist referenceCaregiver attemptDTW match

VEX Robotics 8861F

Captain, lead programmer & CAD designer · Robohawks, ISB

Sept 2024 – now

Represented Thailand at the VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas, Texas, after our alliance won the Thailand National Championship.

  • Programmed autonomous and driver-control routines with PID control for accurate, repeatable motion.
  • CAD-designed the robot and helped with mechanical design, assembly and part allocation through build and competition phases.
  • Gave real-time technical and strategy support at matches; scouted opponents and coordinated with alliance partners.

Tournament Champion, VEX Thailand National Championship 2025Regional Champion, VEX V5 Push Back 2025Thailand representative, VEX Worlds 2025

VEX V5PID controlCADAutonomous routines
Nan adjusting robot 8861F at the edge of the competition field
Tuning 8861F at the field
Team 8861F with their robot under the VEX Robotics World Championship arch in Dallas
At the VEX World Championship, Dallas
Thailand's VEX teams, several in traditional Thai dress, at the World Championship
Representing Thailand at VEX Worlds
VEX Thailand National Championship 2025 poster naming 8861A and 8861F as Tournament Champions
Tournament Champions, Thailand Nationals 2025
Team 8861F Robohawks at their booth at VEX Worlds with the Steel Panthers banner
Our booth at VEX Worlds
Nan carrying robot 8861F to the field
Carrying 8861F to the field
July 2026

Nuri

AI market-research agent

Simulates consumer personas from live web and social data (Gemini, Exa) and interviews them.

3rd prize, IAI2O

June 2025

Ocean warming forecast

International Computing Olympiad 2025

Built Python regression models on 175 years of NASA and NOAA ocean temperature records to forecast warming trends, then linked the projected warming to plankton biodiversity risk.

National finalistInternational special mention

PythonRegressionNASA / NOAA dataForecasting

nan.debug()

What broke

The prototypes that failed, and what each one taught me.

$ nan.debug() --show-failureskept on purpose
EcoBin

Six-plus versions before one worked

v1→v2→v3→v4→v5→v6+ deployed
EcoBin version 4 with its touchscreen and internals
v4 touchscreen + tank
Nan beside EcoBin version 5
v5 full-size kiosk
The deployed EcoBin kiosk
v6+ deployed
broke
The water pumps broke down after a while; pumping used cooking oil wore them out.
fixed
Replaced the pumps with solenoid valves so oil flows by gravity, leaving no pump to fail.
refined
Retrained and refined the YOLOv11 oil-validation model through pilot testing.
listened
Interviewed 30+ vendors across 4 regions of Thailand about what they actually needed from a drop-off point.

nan.share()

Share

Teaching, leading and showing up for my communities.

nan.awards()

Recognition

Newest first. Color shows how far the competition reached.

Presented on stage at

MIT App Inventor Global Education SummitMIT Stata Center · alongside Prof. Hal Abelson & Prof. Gerald Jay Sussman IEEE i-CREATe 2025before HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn VEX Robotics World ChampionshipDallas, TX · for Thailand MIT Media Lab AI & Robotics HackathonBangkok Sustainability Expo 2025Bangkok · AI Innovator Award
InternationalNationalSchool
2026
  • Winner2,176 participants · 141 countriesYouth Team Winner, MIT Global Appathon 2026EcoBin · run by MIT App Inventor and the App Inventor FoundationInvited to present at the MIT App Inventor Global Education Summit, MIT Stata Center, Cambridge, MAJudged byDr. Vivienne MingPresented alongsideProf. Hal AbelsonMIT CSAIL · Founder of App InventorProf. Gerald Jay SussmanMIT CSAIL
  • 3rd Prize, IAI2O AI for Business TrackNuri · AI agent that simulates consumer personas from live web data
  • Club Excellence Award, 2nd year runningHearts and Hands · International School Bangkok
2025
  • 1st3 rounds · $1,000 grant1st Place, MIT Media Lab AI & Robotics HackathonHaptiHeal · Visionaries Pitching winnerBangkok · with MIT Media Lab, MIT Management ASEAN Office, Bangkok Bank and cloud11
  • 🇹🇭Thailand's representativeTournament Champion, VEX Thailand National ChampionshipVEX Robotics 8861F · High Stakes seasonQualified to represent Thailand at the VEX Robotics World Championship, Dallas, TX
  • AI Innovator Award FinalistEcoBin · CMKL University scholarship offerPitched at Sustainability Expo 2025 · CMKL University (Carnegie Mellon × KMITL), with Dell Technologies
  • National Software Competition Semi-FinalistEcoBin · 3 rounds · $300 development grantNSTDA, Thailand's National Science and Technology Development Agency
  • International Computing OlympiadNational finalist → international special mentionPython forecasting on 175 years of NASA / NOAA data
  • 1st Place Alliance, VEX V5 Push Back QualifierVEX Robotics 8861F
  • Club Excellence AwardHearts and Hands · International School Bangkok

nan.life()

Life

What I do when I am not building.

Sept 2014 – Sept 2025

Swimming

Varsity swimmer & swim coach

  • Competed twice at IASAS, the top tier of competition among six Southeast Asian international schools.
  • ASCA Level 1 certified; coached young swimmers in a paid role.

11 years in the water

ISB Panthers swim team photo at the 2025 IASAS Swimming Championships
ISB Panthers, 2025 IASAS Swimming Championships
ISB swim team on stage in front of IASAS school banners
ISB swim team at IASAS

May 2019 – present

Flute

1st flute

  • Selected as 1st Flute for AMIS (Association for Music in International Schools).
  • Silver Prize, 9th Hong Kong International Youth Performance Arts Festival.
  • Held the 1st Flute chair at school, 2021–22.

Shot on film

A roll from my film camera. No previews, no retakes.

Shanghai skyline and the Oriental Pearl Tower at night, with a lit riverboat01A
Egyptian sculptures in a museum gallery02A
A Korean palace hall under a clear blue sky, with visitors in hanbok03A
A cyclist passing under tall trees in Central Park04A
A beach resort with palm trees, a lily pond and the sea05A
A horse carriage and a scooter rider on a tree-lined park road06A
A tiled, painted arcade ceiling seen through a stone arch07A
A café interior with a fireplace, brick walls and paintings08A

Restaurant hopping

If you come to Thailand, I know where to take you to the best street vendors.

Everything I've tried is ranked on my Beli: @nanpiyatida

Let's connect.

About EcoBin, HaptiHeal, or anything built for people who usually get left out of the brief.

email: 'luangonnan@gmail.com',
linkedin: 'linkedin.com/in/piyatida-nan-luangon'

Piyatida (Nan) Luangon

Bangkok, Thailand