Cole Wendrowski
I build systems that perceive, decide, and act — in spacecraft, on robots, and in software.
Rocket Lab · Xcelerator · Virginia Tech
Things I have built
- autonav_sim — A standalone simulator so an autonomous navigation stack can be tested without the robot.
- prediction_calibration — Finding where prediction markets are systematically wrong, then betting only there.
- fantasy_quant — Optimizes championship probability, not projected points.
- ping_me — Your agent taps you on the wrist when it finishes, so you can stop watching it.
- clamshell — Keeps a MacBook working with the lid shut and no charger, so long runs survive the walk home.
More
- metis — Behavior cloning in Gymnasium — learning a policy by imitation rather than reward.
- cdqn — A deep Q-network learning Gymnasium games from raw pixels alone.
- visualize_transformer_attention — Making a transformer's attention legible instead of taking it on faith.
- chat_with_files — Retrieval-augmented question answering over your own documents, fully local.
Where I have worked
- Rocket Lab — Flight Software Engineer Intern, May 2025 – August 2025
- Xcelerator Group — Autonomous Navigation and Networking Engineer Intern, June 2024 – August 2024
- Kapsch TrafficCom — Software Engineer Intern, Summers 2019 and 2020
- eTrans Systems — Software and Embedded Systems Intern, June 2018 – August 2018
- AutoNav — Virginia Tech Competitive Robotics — Autonomy Engineer, January 2026 – present
Education
- M.S. Computer Science — research in AI for robotics, Virginia Tech — May 2027
- B.S. Computer Science, minors in Economics and Mathematics, Virginia Tech — May 2026
What I am working on now
Updated 2026-09-07
- ROS2 LiDAR stack for AutoNav — Real-time obstacle avoidance for autonomous navigation competition, with autonav_sim as the proving ground.
- Master’s research in AI for robotics — Agentic approaches to manipulation and navigation — where a language model helps decide, and the robot still has to act.
- Agent ergonomics — Small tools that make long autonomous sessions practical to actually live with, like ping_me and clamshell.
About me
Get in touch colew@vt.edu