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Maxwell Li

Hi! I am a computer science student at Cornell in the class of 2028. This website is the best place to see some of the projects I work on in my free time.

About me

A little more context

My projects

My projects are a reflection of my interests in the moment. Some are born out of a particular problem I'm facing, others are a way to explore a new technology or idea, some are a creative submission for a class project, and some others yet are just made for fun.

How did we get here?

From a young age, I've always been interested in building things. It started with Lego and Minecraft, but when I started coding in middle school, it was love at first sight. After being accepted into my dream school, Cornell, I've been able to explore my interests in a more structured way, and I've been able to build some really cool things.

My hobbies

In my free time, I like to hang out with my friends, play video games, learn new instruments, and explore the beauty of creation. Above all, I enjoy the process of creating and learning new things, and making meaningful connections with others.

Selected work

Deployments, interfaces, and fun projects.

Image2Banners

Contributed to this project by adding Mac support and improving the UI. This app takes images and converts them into complex banners, And shows crafting steps for each banner, or saves as NBT to build using a structure block. You can also save them as JSON file, so you don't have to regenerate complex banners from the image each time.

  • Python
  • scikit-learn
  • Electron
  • Shell

ASCIIify

ASCIIify is a tool that converts videos to ASCII art. It uses FFMPEG to convert the video to a series of images, and then uses a custom algorithm to convert the images to ASCII art.

  • C++
  • FFMPEG
  • CMake
  • Shell
  • OpenCV

Burger.AI

Finalist at the 2026 Cornell AI NYC Hackathon — automated pipeline to stress-test agentic financial AI against OWASP-style expectations.

  • Python
  • React
  • OpenAI API
  • Anthropic API
  • Shell

MedExplain

Hack4Impact Cornell — led backend and UI overhaul for a nonprofit platform that delivers free, accessible medical information.

  • TypeScript
  • React
  • REST APIs
  • Accessibility

Critterland

A game simulating critter habitats and critter evolution. Made as a final project for CS 2112 at Cornell.

  • Java
  • JavaFX
  • Gradle
  • Maven

Debately

Claude Builder's Club Hackathon 2025 — structured, fact-based debate with Claude summaries, source checks, and Tavily-backed verification.

  • TypeScript
  • React
  • Claude API
  • SQLite
  • Tavily API

Ka-Ching!

BigRed//Hacks 2025 — gamify Google Calendar into a tycoon experience with Flask, MongoDB, and Gemini.

  • TypeScript
  • React
  • Flask
  • Google Gemini API
  • MongoDB

HypathiaBot

Modular Discord moderation bot using NLTK sentiment plus OpenAI, deployed on three servers (100+ users, 800+ messages/week).

  • Python
  • NLTK
  • OpenAI
  • Redis
  • Docker
  • discord.py

Daylite

Minecraft Fabric mod that rewrites the lighting engine for dynamic brightness — 175+ downloads on Modrinth.

  • Java
  • Fabric API
  • ModMenu API

Independent research — DDoS amplification

May–July 2024 analysis of CIC-DDoS2019: supervised ML for amplification traffic at 99%+ accuracy, Vaex plots over 5M rows.

  • Python
  • scikit-learn
  • pandas
  • NumPy
  • Vaex
  • Matplotlib

Download my resume

A synopsis of my work experience and projects.

Download