I’m Noah Kenner. I’m a sophomore Mechanical Engineering student and a member of Martel College. In addition to majoring in Mech-E, I also intend to obtain a minor in Engineering Design. Outside of the classroom, I perform in Rice’s improv comedy troupe, Spontaneous Combustion.

One thing I’ve made that I’m proud of, as mentioned in class, is my ENGI 200 project: The Celestial Demonstrator (see below). The idea behind this device is that it can point at the sun and moon as the day progresses. I’m most proud of this device not because of the level of functionality that our team reached, but rather the way in which we made many intricate systems work together in order to achieve our final product.

In the future, I’d like to make something practical and long-lasting, ideally necessitating machining proficiency, as this would require me to learn a new set of skills and how to apply them. As of now, most of my creations have not had the most practical of applications, so building something that could be used in industry would be especially exciting for me.

Going hand-in-hand with what I’d like to build, the thing I most want to learn in ENGI 210 is how to use the tools in the machine shop. I’ve had some exposure through ENGI 120 and ENGI 200, but gaining a better understanding of how to use these tools would allow me to reach much further into the world of engineering design.