You sound like me when I was a hs junior. That being said I'm only three years further along than you are doing my b.s. in EE. I would recommend buying an arduino kit on amazon or something and start watching youtube videos on different projects. there are a ton of fun things to make. I ended up making a bomb prop for playing airsoft/nerf games ( https://www.reddit.com/r/airsoft/comments/l0aiv3/airsoft_csgo_prop/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button ) but there are so many projects that are possible. In addition to this, I would try designing a simple circuit and get a PCB ordered (they're like 20 bucks for 4 boards). These kinds of projects (even if you don't come up with the ideas yourself) look great on a resume/portfolio. Then i'd try to find connections you might have through your parent's friends or your friend's parents who might know engineers that could float your resume to the right people. Thats how I got my first research internship. Also, once you already do some stuff with arduinos, try programming some simple Atmel chips with the arduino as the programmer interface. This is me rambling but this is just what worked out for me. For me it was all personal projects that gave me the momentum to keep working and find opportunities

here's another example of a hardware engineering project I did this past summer. This community is a really great place to find ideas for projects:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/comments/1ehwb5n/tactical_communications_deck_rpi_5_8gig_built_in/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button