This is a project I am currently working on with two other prospective future engineering students at my high school. We are designing and constructing a maneuverable robot that has the ability to filter fertilizer runoff out of bodies of water. My role so far has been to design the outer shell of the robot, while my teammates work on the filtration component and movement.

LabVIEW is a software that I have been self teaching myself. It is mainly used for the design and operation of different instruments, and the collection and interpretation of data. My goal with this skill is to apply it towards my robotic filtration project to create an instrument on the robot which which can take readings of different compounds in the water and their respective levels.

The Ruben’s tube is a device I built which allows for the visualization of different frequencies and sounds. Gas is pumped into the tube and can escape through holes positioned on the top of the tube. Light the escaping gas on fire and hook a speaker up the the far end and you have a perfect demonstration of the way sound waves travel and behave.

As someone wanting to make things, understanding culture is important where it would be used. Designers and engineers need to take into account the culture their product is being used in. I have been learning the French language for 8 years now, and it is a skill which I would like to continue to develop. This project took me on a deep dive of the learning about French culture. I learned about Nice, a city in the south of France where the person who taught me French was from. From this I learned a greater appreciation for other cultures from my own, and I want to take this knowledge into account for future projects I may work on. For a design or work of engineering to be truly successful, it must be accessible to all cultures.