Hello world!

I’m Nicolas. Or Nick. Or whatever I felt like introducing myself as at the time. I’m a freshman at Martel College, still probably set on bioengineering. At this point I’m still trying to figure it all out.

I took 120 last semester and had a great time. Not only did I meet amazing people, but I was given the opportunity to tackle a real engineering problem. Though our cleaning robot for a rocket test chamber had its flaws, I was overall happy with the results. I learned that engineering is definitely where I want to be.

I’m in 210 this semester because I knew my project team wouldn’t continue. I wanted to learn how to operate all the fun machines I walked by every day but never got a chance to use. Plus, prototyping was the most fun part of last semester. Seeing your idea come off the paper (or screen) and holding it in your hands is probably one of the most rewarding feelings there is for me.

My creative design outside of class isn’t exactly what you’d describe as engineering. My father is a blacksmith by hobby, so I grew up watching him make beautiful knives and works of art at the forge from nothing more than raw chunks of steel. I eventually got my turn at the forge, shaping metal into various hooks, chisels, and trinkets. This really inspired my drive, my desire to make my ideas into reality.

These days, my main hobby is making music. Though I’ve been playing classical piano for close to a decade now, only in the past year or so have I turned to the world of jazz and improvisation. I take an idea, an emotion, and do my best to convey it through the keyboard. Just over the past couple months, I’ve added the computer keyboard to my instruments, producing and further refining my songs through software. It’s the next logical step for me: before my improvised songs escaped into the air; now I can capture them and shape them into something more than what they were. It’s the equivalent of holding the music in my hand, and there’s nothing more rewarding than seeing a finished product.