Extended Biography (before engineering)
I have always had a strong desire to understand how things work and how to improve them or create something new from scratch. Throughout the years, I have made countless contraptions ever since I was old enough to handle tools. My first successful large scale project was a six-wheeled off-road vehicle that was powered by a hand crank and an old electric motor from a vacuum cleaner. It had two pedals in the front for steering and an elaborate suspension using compression and tension springs. I made this entirely by myself with a limited amount of hand tools and a table saw when I was 16 years old, with no engineering knowledge and a small amount of experience from a wood shop class.
A whole new world of possibilities emerged when I realized I was able to bring my ideas to life. Consequently, many of my teenage years were consumed by my obsession of building my designs. At this point, my involvement with programming had also taken off as I spent a large amount of time creating my own computer games with hundreds of lines of code and animations with thousands of frames.
Eventually my scope of interest expanded from bio-mechanical/personal vehicles to power generation. The image below shows a pedal powered electric generator that I made when I was 18 years old. I still had no formal training in mechanical or electrical disciplines. I welded a modified bicycle to a stationary frame and then connected a generator via belt drive which powered an inverter to create a 120 V, 60 Hz output at 250 Watts.
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Surprisingly, as the years went on into college I still didn't know what I wanted to do for a career and I ended up changing my major numerous times. Some of my majors were general engineering, aeronautical science, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, health science, business, mechanical engineering technology, and applied energy and electromechanical systems. It wasn't until I enrolled at UNC Charlotte (my last two majors) that I realized I was finally in a field where I could see myself being successful and happy, indefinitely.
Looking back at the things I've accomplished with such limited knowledge and resources, I am confident that I will achieve great things in the future.
To see more of my recent work, please look at my project pages and gallery at the bottom of the main page.