Autumn Quarter
Living On One's Own
This year I lived in Steven's Court rather than Maple Hall. This allowed me the privacy of my own room! Looking back on it, I can't imagine sharing a room with another person; however, last year it felt normal. Having my own kitchen inspired me to cook a lot more often than last year as well. I also felt more freedom to decorate and make the place my own. The only downside is that without someone sharing my room my cleanliness standards dropped a little.
First Year In My Major
After working hard on my application, I got placed into my intended major Mechanical Engineering. Although I have yet to take any major specific classes, I am ready to start learning content that is more closely related to my intended career.
Dead Tooth
Toward the end of the quarter my girlfriend woke up in the middle of the night with intense tooth pain. Not knowing how severe the situation was paired with the lack of connections in this state made it very difficult to get to a dentist. After a few sleepless nights we found our way to the dentist and were told it was a dead tooth. Then we had to wait a day to get to the specialist. All of this waiting while in pain was very hard on her and marked a foreboding transition from fall into winter quarter.
Winter Quarter
Saying No?
Winter quarter was my hardest quarter so far. Classes were tough and required a large amount of time and effort and I was spending around 12 hours every single day working for DBF. I was in the shop all night on some occasions. After some behavior from the leadership in the club that I disagreed with, it made it sort of feel like it was all for nothing. In spring quarter I was completely burnt out. I hadn't even really believed it could happen till then. All of that work made me reconsider how I viewed the work I was asked to do and I learned to set boundaries. Learning how to say no might be one of the most valuable things I take away from college as it applies heavily to the future of my career and the relationship I have with the workplace.
Attempting a Minor
This quarter I decided to attempt a minor in applied mathematics. I took AMATH 352 and was surprised at how much it helped me understand topics I thought I was already comfortable with. However I thought there would be more MATLAB included in the course which is the main reason I thought to go for the minor so I was slightly disappointed in that regard.
Internship search
I unfortunately did not manage to get an internship for the summer. I went to a few career fairs and applied to a good number of internships but did not get anything in the end. It seems that a good number of companies were asking for junior level coursework to have been completed so hopefully next year I will be able to intern and get some professional experience before I start my career.
Spring Quarter
Experiential Learning
Summarize your proposed experiential learning activity, including the primary focus of your activity and whatever tasks or actions it entails.
I will be leading the prototype team for Design Build Fly at the University of Washington. My role is to manage the prototype team and produce a working prototype RC plane for the upcoming competition. I will be responsible for making sure my team knows how to manufacture in a safe and efficient manner, managing scheduling in order to create a prototype as expediently as possible, and to educate my team members on the practice of manufacturing. The main goal is to create a prototype to understand the performance of the design, notify us of any necessary changes that need to be made to the design before creating the final plane, and to familiarize members with the manufacturing process so the final plane will be built by practiced hands.
Explain how your activity demonstrates the values of the Honors Program Experiential Learning category you selected. Rather than reiterating our definition, outline how your activity embodies this definition. Why is this category part of the Honors values? Why does it matter? For example, if you are doing research, what tasks and activities are you performing on a daily basis, what IS research and how are those tasks connected.
Throughout fall quarter, Design Build Fly will be working to construct a design or vision that accomplishes a goal. The prototype team will be a collaboration of each other project team to create a physical plane. This effort will be largely interdisciplinary as people from a variety of backgrounds and experiences work to contribute their particular expertise to the construction of the plane. Constructing the plane will provide members an opportunity to apply their education and learn the skills they will practice in an engineering career. As the project lead, I will promote collaboration, manage decision-making and methodology, and guide the education of both myself and others.
How and why did you select this engagement? What skills or experiences do you hope to gain from it?
I chose to become an engineer mostly because of my love of building things and have been adamantly set on my career since middle school. I have since participated in many relevant activities including but not limited to robotics, wood shop, metal shop, welding, and CNC. In my freshman year I joined the manufacturing team at Design Build Fly and spent many hours in the shop helping build several planes throughout the year. I spent a minimum of 5 hours in the shop a week and spent 10-20 during some. Because of my demonstrated commitment I was one of two freshman invited to competition and offered the position of prototype lead this year. I hope to further my manufacturing experience this year as well as perhaps refine my circuitry.
How does this activity connect to your concurrent or past coursework? How does it speak to your broader education goals and experiences?
Enrollment in engineering classes and participation in engineering extracurricular activities has already given me skills that I have utilized at Design Build Fly. In my first year at DBF I was pleasantly surprised at my ability to use some of my previous skills to contribute to the team. The procedures for CAD, laser cutting, and composite work mirrored my high school experience almost identically. My current enrollment in ME 123 will strengthen my CAD skills which will hopefully help during the design process at DBF. My time at DBF has already taught me a plethora of engineering skills which will be tremendously helpful in my career. Participation at DBF gives vital experience in design, manufacturing, and documentation.
How will your activity contribute to the larger goals of the organization/your partners?
The prototype team will construct a fully functional RC plane that will serve as a preliminary test of our design choices, manufacturing methods, and mission strategy. The results of this test will give us an idea about any changes we need to make in the design or manufacturing as well as give us a sense for how we will assemble, fly, and perform maintenance on the plane at competition. Our projected schedule has the manufacturing of the prototype finished in five days making for a very tight schedule. The prototype must meet the requirements laid out by the AIAA's rules and be able to perform the same missions as the competition plane. Building the prototype will also serve as an educational experience for all its members.
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Reflection
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After getting into the year, I was made the fuselage lead rather than the prototype lead. I ended up leading a small group of about 5 people to design, build, and test a monocoque carbon-fiber fuselage. This update probably would completely change my response to the summary as it ended up being an entirely different position. The role required a ton of collaboration with my own team members, other project teams, other subteams, and the leads. The role gave plenty of opportunity to educate myself and others. This year the team made a huge step in becoming more proficient with composite manufacturing and the design required the development and familiarization with many methods foreign to us. I spent quite a bit of time both educating myself and others for both the new processes and the old. My abilities leading and working with others as a team saw significant growth. This has been my foremost experience with leadership thus far in my life and certainly was a good introduction to a career in engineering. Through this experience, I got to apply all of the content I have been learning through my coursework as well as get a headstart on some future content. In particular the design of the fuselage required the analysis of loading composite materials. Much of this content was scheduled later in my course schedule so me and my team had to do a lot of learning on our own. My completion of ME 123 helped with the CAD aspects of the design. One major difference that my experience had to my application was the time commitment. 25 hours a week is laughably low. I spent most of my time both fall and winter quarter working on DBF. Both my coursework and my sleep were pushed aside. Hopefully my efforts paid off though as our team placed 5th in the competition.