Activities
(Check out some of my hobbies!)
Flying
I am fortunate to have grown up in a family heavily involved with aviation. Both my father and my grandfather learned how to fly at a young age, and both of my brothers are pilots. Two summers while in high school I was able to attend a soaring camp at Sugarbush Airport in Vermont and soloed in an L-23 Super Blanik. In August of 2018 I was thrilled to receive my Private Pilot’s license in my grandfather’s General Avia F22b. Flying is an activity that demands high levels of awareness, concentration and discipline, and results in an extremely rewarding experience.
Remote Control Aircraft
I first became involved with remote control aircraft at about the age of six. By the time I was in middle school I had entirely built and flown many different types of RC aircraft, and learned to love the payoff of an occasionally successful maiden flight. By high school this hobby occupied nearly all of my free time. I was able to follow the rise of hobbyist drones from the very start, and built many of my own designs. From an unusually young age this hobby got me involved with many different facets of engineering, especially mechanical and electrical, and introduced me to knowledge that has been continuously useful throughout college.
Society of Manufacturing Engineers
The most common roadblock I ran into with my personal projects in high school was my manufacturing capability. As a freshman at WPI I persistently worked my way into the manufacturing labs to soak up knowledge from this new resource, and found an amazing community of “makers.” In the second semester of freshman year I was already a teacher’s assistant, and ran lab sections for the intro to CNC class. A few other TA’s and myself realized the huge potential that existed in the then dying off Society of Manufacturing Engineers Club, so we refounded it. Sophomore year I was Vice President, and Junior year President. We host weekly meetings to make manufacturing knowledge more accessible to students. The club has also been able to direct school funding to purchase WPI’s first CNC waterjet and CNC plasma table.
Photography
When multirotors became accesible to hobbyists, one of the first things people did was stick cameras on them, usually early generation GoPros. This got me interested in photography. I became fascinated with cameras and by high school had memorized most of the specifications for all the name-brand lineups. I was able to convince my parents to buy one of the cheaper Sony mirrorless cameras, and began realizing the amazing product of optical physics and art. I am especially interested in more technical photography like long-exposure.
Videography
In parallel to learning about photography in middle school, I learned about videography. People that were professionally using drones or helicopters with video cameras often had demo reels with clips from different action sports films, so I began soaking in every new action sports video I could find. My family’s internet bandwidth often wasn’t enough to stream 720p videos in 2010 so I had a folder filled with downloaded videos to play back later. Most of the multirotors I built in high school were aimed at being “cinema” drones so I could make my own cool action sports videos and demo reels, however I haven’t had the time to fully realize that dream. Above are two videos for school projects, a difficult day-to-night motionlapse, and a short edit of clips from my first tricopter with a Gopro Hero HD taped on top.
Outdoor Adventures
Above are some photos from various adventures I’ve been able to have over the past few years. I’ve been skiing since I was three years old, and every summer of my childhood I was able to spend time at our family’s lake house in New Hampshire, so I’ve gained an appreciation for the outdoors. In high school my club swim team did a few winter challenge trips in Vermont led by a prior lead instructor for the US Military Mountaineering School, and I became interested in hiking, orienteering, winter survival, and rock climbing. I have been able to share these passions with many like-minded people at WPI.