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Hardware & Embedded Systems Intern (Reno Connect LLC, Pack Intern, Spring '27)

Nevada Career Studio
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**This internship is hosted by Reno Connect LLC and sponsored by the Nevada Career Studio and ASUN. 

 

Students are highly encouraged to complete a 15 minute drop-in or schedule an in-person or virtual 30-minute appointment with a Career Mentor BEFORE submitting an application. Resumes and cover letters that do not meet NCS best practices will not be included in applicant packages to employers. 

  

After the application period closes in Handshake, the NCS Internships Team reviews the applicants and sends eligible students' applicant packages to employers for them to reach out to conduct interviews and make the final intern selection. Employers will contact students directly if they are interested in moving forward with them as a candidate. 

 

About Reno Connect LLC: 

Reno Connect is a Reno, Nevada-based venture studio that ideates, incubates, and builds new businesses from the ground up. In 2025, we developed and launched Float Reno, working with the City of Reno to create a river tubing experience for locals and visitors. Our current venture is a purpose-built vending platform for regulated products, where age verification, compliance, and product security are built in from the start rather than retrofitted. We design and manufacture the hardware locally in Reno, develop the embedded and mobile software that runs it, and operate the cloud platform that lets operators run the entire business from one place. 

  

Our vision is to build ventures in Reno that prove a small, focused team can take an idea from concept to shipping product without leaving town. The company was founded by a technology executive and father of three college students who wants to give students the kind of exposure to strategy, business, and technology that rarely fits inside a classroom. Our culture is small and hands-on: interns sit in on real decisions, own real work across hardware, software, and cloud, and see how the pieces connect as we move from prototype to production. 

 

Internship Description: 

Reno Connect is a Reno-based venture studio bringing a purpose-built, connected dispensing machine for regulated products from prototype to production. We are looking for an engineering student to join the founder in taking the hardware across the finish line. 

  

You will work directly on the machine: a custom carousel dispenser driven by stepper motors, sensors, and a camera, controlled by an ESP32-based board of our own design and connected to an Android app and cloud platform. Your work will span embedded firmware (ESP-IDF, C/C++), electrical bring-up and testing of our custom PCB, mechanical and electromechanical validation, and the assembly and test documentation our local fabrication partners will use to build production units. 

  

Typical work includes writing and testing firmware for motor control, sensor homing, and dispense verification; running bench and integration tests and characterizing performance and failure modes; supporting a PCB revision cycle from schematic review through bring-up; and documenting assembly and repair procedures. You will sit in on design and sourcing decisions and see how cost, serviceability, and regulatory constraints shape a real product. 

  

This position is a mix of hands-on time at our Reno workspace and remote development. We provide the development hardware, tools, and software licenses you need. 

  

Ideal candidates are junior or senior students in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or Computer Science with coursework or project experience in microcontrollers or embedded systems. Familiarity with C/C++, Git, basic circuit debugging, or 3D CAD is a plus. Most important is curiosity, comfort with ambiguity, and the desire to see something you built ship. 

 

Duties/Responsibilities: 

  • Develop and test embedded firmware in ESP-IDF (C/C++) for motor control, sensor homing, dispense verification, door lock control, and communication with the Android application. 
  • Perform bench and integration testing on the controller board and dispensing mechanism, including electrical measurements, fault diagnosis, and component-level rework under supervision. 
  • Design and execute test plans that characterize performance and failure modes, and document results in a form that informs the next hardware revision. 
  • Support a PCB revision cycle: review schematics and layout, participate in bring-up of new boards, and track defects through to resolution. 
  • Assist with mechanical and electromechanical validation of the carousel, ejector, and retention actuators, and propose design improvements where warranted. 
  • Produce assembly, test, and repair documentation for use by our fabrication and assembly partners. 
  • Maintain organized source code, test records, and issue tracking in our shared repositories. 
  • Participate in weekly design reviews and planning with the founder, and present findings and recommendations from your work. 
  • Follow safe lab practices when working with power supplies, motors, and moving mechanisms. 

 

Goals and Expectations of the Intern: 

  • Complete 150 hours of work as an intern (8-15 hours per week, 15 weeks total) 
  • Own one firmware subsystem end to end, from specification through validated, documented code merged into the production codebase 
  • Complete a hardware validation test plan for the dispensing mechanism and controller board, with recorded results and a written summary of findings and recommended design changes 
  • Deliver a set of assembly, test, and repair documents that a fabrication partner can follow without the founder present 
  • Present a final summary of their work, including what was built, what was learned, and what they would do differently 
  • Keep a consistent schedule agreed on at the start of the semester 
  • Communicate proactively when blocked or uncertain about a task 
  • Ask questions early, take ownership of their assigned work, document as they go, and treat the hardware and lab space with care 
  • They can expect direct mentoring from the founder, real responsibility on a shipping product, honest feedback, and exposure to the business and strategy decisions behind the engineering 

 

Required Qualifications: 

  • Must be a degree-seeking undergraduate student at the University of Nevada, Reno during the Spring ‘27 semester 
  • December ‘26 or earlier graduates are not eligible for the Pack Internship Grant Program 
  • Working knowledge of C or C++ or Python 
  • Basic understanding of circuits and comfort using a multimeter and reading a schematic. 
  • Ability to work independently, document your work clearly, and communicate progress and problems in a timely manner. 
  • Availability of 8-15 hours per week during the Spring 2027 semester, including some on-site time at our Reno workspace. 
  • Reliable transportation to the workspace and fabrication partner locations in Reno. 

 

Preferred Qualifications: 

  • Sophomore, junior, or senior Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related program. 
  • Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related program. Coursework or project experience with microcontrollers or embedded systems (e.g., Arduino, ESP32, STM32, or similar) 
  • Experience with ESP-IDF, FreeRTOS, or another RTOS-based embedded environment. 
  • Familiarity with common peripheral interfaces such as I2C, SPI, UART, and GPIO expanders. 
  • Experience with stepper motors, motor drivers, or other electromechanical control. 
  • Exposure to PCB design tools (Altium, KiCad, or similar) or PCB bring-up and debugging. 
  • Experience with 3D CAD (SolidWorks, Fusion 360, or similar) or 3D printing for fixtures and enclosures. 
  • Comfort with Git and collaborative development workflows. 
  • Prior hands-on project work through a student club, competition team, hackathon, or personal build. 
  • Interest in how hardware products are manufactured, sourced, and brought to market. 

 

Desired Schedule for Intern:  

Approximately 8-15  hours per week during the Spring 2027 semester, built around the student's class schedule. We are highly flexible on when the hours happen. The only fixed commitment is a weekly check-in with the founder (about an hour, scheduled at the start of the semester) plus some on-site time at our Reno workspace for hands-on hardware work, which can be arranged in blocks that fit the student's week. Firmware development, testing on the take-home development kit, documentation, and research can be done remotely at whatever hours work for the student, including evenings and weekends. We will adjust the schedule around exams, projects, and other academic commitments; school comes first. 

 

PIGP internships require interns to complete 150 hours during their internship. It is the intern’s responsibility to ensure this requirement is met.