Zolile Zoko – ePortfolio

About Me

I’m Zolile Zoko, born and raised in Botshabelo, a small township in the Free State whose name means "Place of Refuge." Every day, I strive to become a better engineer by giving my all and staying open to learning. I aim to use the skills I’ve gained at UCT to make a tangible difference in society. I love tackling problems, exploring multiple solutions, and optimizing systems. My interdisciplinary degree has strengthened my systemic thinking and nurtured my curiosity for building, deconstructing, and improving things. I thrive in environments that produce not only innovative and impactful solutions, but also prioritize ethical work, meaningful contributions to others, and care for the environment. I learn quickly, collaborate effectively, and am passionate about making technology truly useful for people.

Projects

Penguin Weight Monitoring (IoT + ML)

ESP32-CAM + RFID + load cells for real-time health tracking.
Dashboard with Flask backend hosted on AWS.
ML model for anomaly detection and alerts.

Click to see images and system diagram.

FPGA Image Edge Detection Pipeline

Hardware-accelerated pipeline in Verilog.
16× faster than software baseline.

GitHub Repo PDF Report

Micromouse Power Module

Custom PCB for motor control and power management.
Integrated with sensing and navigation modules.
Programmed Micromouse for line-following and wall detection behavior.

Yagi-Uda Antenna Design & Build

Designed and optimised a 6-element Yagi-Uda antenna at 1.3 GHz using FEKO simulations.
Constructed prototype with copper wire, Perspex boom, and BNC connector.
Achieved measured gain within 2% of design specifications.
Tested reflection coefficients and gain performance with real-world setup.

PDF Report Available

HF Radar (Final Year Project)

Currently developing an HF radar system using Red Pitaya boards
Focus on FPGA programming, waveform generation, and signal sampling.
Testing with 40 kHz ultrasound transducers, with optional RF testing at 15 MHz.
Explores practical FPGA-based radar implementation, building on MSc research.

Ongoing – Final Year Project

Experience

ICTS Student Lab Assistant · UCT

Feb 2023 – Present

Provided technical support to 100+ students per shift and solved issues with customer-first mindset.

Hardware Engineering Intern · Lumkani

Jun–Jul 2025

Built LVGL UI and integrated RFM69HW wireless module.
Designed a custom PCB upgrading a button-based Network Utility tool to a touchscreen version.

Skills

Technical Skills

C

Java

Python

Verilog

High Performance ES

PCB design

Web (HTML/CSS/JS)

AWS EC2

Mobile & Wireless Network Design

Digital Signal Processing

ML Pipeline Design

Linux

Heterogeneous Embedded Systems

Antenna Design

Top 5 Skills Radar

Leadership & Engagement

Electrical Engineering First-Year Mentor

In this role, I supported a group of 4 first-year students, helping them navigate the challenges that come with studying Engineering at UCT.

Moshal Scholarship Career Champion 2023

In this role, I curated weekly career newsletters for the Moshal Scholarship UCT cohort, aimed at keeping them updated on the latest career opportunities across the various fields supported by the scholarship.