Let's talk ↗︎Resume
PURDUE UNIVERSITY / CLASS OF 2028

Congyu
Zhao.

I build things people can use — from Aspire 101, a student community app, to interactive games and simulations.

FOUNDER / DEVELOPER / GAME CREATORGitHub ↗︎LinkedIn ↗︎
Congyu Zhao by the coast in black T-shirt and sunglasses
CONGYU ZHAO · COASTAL PORTRAIT
Real Aspire 101 iOS TestFlight home screen
01 / REAL iOS TESTFLIGHTAspire 101 ↗︎
Actual Fish and Ships development frame
02 / GAME DEVELOPMENTFish and Ships ↗︎
MADE TO BE USED
NOT JUST LOOKED AT.
01 / PRODUCT FOUNDER02 / SOFTWARE ENGINEER03 / GAME DEVELOPERSCROLL TO EXPLORE ↓

01 / SELECTED WORK

Selected work.

A campus startup, games, simulations and experiments. Some are live; others are still being built.

Showing 6 of 6 projects

01 / PRODUCT
Real Aspire 101 iOS TestFlight Home screen with campus discoveryACTUAL iOS TESTFLIGHT · NOV 2026
WEB LIVE · MOBILE TESTFLIGHT

Startup · Product engineering

Aspire 101

A campus network for finding people, services, rides and things to do, built around verified university accounts.

MY WORKSole founder · Product design · Web and mobile development
Next.jsReact NativeSupabaseStripe
Project details ↗︎Visit live product ↗︎
02 / GAMESFish and Ships Unity game character prototype from recorded development videoPROTOTYPE

Game development · Team project

Fish and Ships

A collaborative Unity fishing and cooking prototype. Our development review shows fishing, ocean buoyancy, inventory and an early cooking minigame. Multiplayer integration is still underway.

MY WORKOcean simulation · Terrain · Gameplay systems
UnityC#Procedural systems
Project details ↗︎Watch original presentation ↗︎
03 / RESEARCH2023 · PROTOTYPE

Simulation · Research prototype

Wildfire Evacuation Simulator

An early Unity project exploring wildfire evacuation decisions through an interactive simulation. Provisional patent application filed in 2023.

MY WORKSimulation development · Interactive prototyping
UnitySimulationEmergency preparedness
Project details ↗︎Original project website ↗︎
04 / STUDIOSTUDIO

Creative venture · Game development

3AM Game Studio

A game studio I co-founded to develop original ideas and collaborate on interactive projects.

MY WORKCo-founder · Game creation · Collaboration
Game developmentCreative directionTeamwork
Project details ↗︎
05 / GAMESOriginal Tempus Lineus development recording showing a stylized 3D building material studyPROJECT ARCHIVE

World building · Game art

Tempus Lineus

Environment art, visual identity and interface exploration for a story-driven game world.

MY WORKEnvironment work · Visual direction · Interface
3D environmentsGame UIWorld building
Project details ↗︎Watch original project video ↗︎
06 / GAMESPROJECT STUDY

Interaction · Prototyping

Gameplay Systems

Unity prototypes covering puzzle states, objectives, triggers and player feedback.

MY WORKGame logic · Interface states · Prototyping
UnityC#Interaction design
Project details ↗︎

FEATURED STARTUP / ASPIRE 101

Why I started Aspire 101.

At Purdue, I kept seeing the same requests scattered across group chats: rides, help moving, people looking for teammates. I started Aspire 101 to make those connections easier to find.

01 / THE PROBLEM

Being nearby isn’t enough.

Students can share a campus but still never find the person looking for the same game, ride or project.

02 / THE DECISION

Start with what people want to do.

I focused discovery on interests, posts and responses, rather than asking students to already know the right group chat.

03 / WHAT COMES NEXT

Prove people return.

Shipping web and iOS builds was the first step. Repeat posting, useful replies and completed connections are the next things to validate.

WEB PLATFORMLive and usable

University-based discovery, student posts, responses and messaging.

iOS APPLICATIONTestFlight

React Native build in testing; not a public App Store release.

EARLY CONNECTIONUC Davis students

Two students connected through Aspire 101 to play VALORANT. One anecdote, not an activity metric.

FISH AND SHIPS / DEVELOPMENT PRESENTATION

Inside Fish and Ships.

Our demo walks through the Unity prototype: inventory, level editing, character interaction, and island terrain. It also shows the work behind the scenes.

Fish and Ships playable character scene captured from the team development recording
01 / GAMEPLAY · ACTUAL DEV FOOTAGE
Fish and Ships inventory from original development recording
02 / INVENTORY
Fish and Ships island environment from original development recording
03 / ENVIRONMENT
Explore all original frames
01 / INVENTORY

Items, categories & actions

Fish, tools and materials with item selection and in-game actions.

02 / WORLD

Island & terrain

Exploration environments, island generation and terrain editing in Unity.

03 / GAMEPLAY

Interactions & iteration

Playable character actions, development testing, and team iteration.

TEMPUS LINEUS / VISUAL WORLD-BUILDING

Worlds in progress.

Environment art, Blender experiments and original project footage from an earlier game-world study. A look at the making, not a finished game release.

Explore the full project

Original YouTube uploads · Work-in-progress footage. Watch original on YouTube ↗︎

02 / ABOUT

A little
about me.

Congyu Zhao photographed near the coast
From my personal photo archive

I'm studying Computer Graphics Technology at Purdue University (Class of 2028) with a minor in Management. I founded Aspire 101 under Cloudora Labs and co-founded the game studio 3AM.

Most days I'm working on product decisions, React and Supabase code, or a Unity scene. I like switching between the technical details and the experience someone has using what I build.

BUILDNext.js · React Native · Supabase · Stripe
CREATEUnity · C# · 3D environments · Game systems
EXPLOREProduct thinking · UX · Visual storytelling

03 / JOURNEY

Experience.

Work and experience outside class.

SEP 2026 — NOW

Founder · Aspire 101

Cloudora Labs

Leading development of a campus marketplace across web, Expo / React Native, Supabase and testing workflows.

↗︎
MAR — SEP 2026

ERP Systems & Web Design Intern

Belong Automotive Technology

Researched ERP integration and helped troubleshoot data migration and cross-system workflows.

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AUG 2024 — DEC 2025

Undergraduate Data Researcher

Purdue Data Mine

Analyzed 100K+ agricultural data rows with R, data.table and Jupyter for Corteva Agriscience research.

↗︎
JUL — OCT 2025

Graphic Designer Intern

Narb

Designed 15+ digital assets using Figma and Adobe tools and supported social media reporting.

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JUN — AUG 2025

Marketing Research Intern

AXENTRA OS

Compared industry and product trends using Excel and presented research findings.

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04 / SAY HELLO

Let's talk.

Want to talk about a project, a role, or an idea? Send me a note.