My name is Matthew Whaley, and I am a Mechanical Engineering Student in the Rice Class of 2022. In addition to being a MechE Major and EDES Minor student, I also participate in the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership as both a student and a coach. When I am not doing engineering, I work as a youth soccer referee in the Houston area and volunteer my time serving as McMurtry College’s Internal Vice President.

In my career as an engineering student, I had the privilege to showcase my ENGI 120 Project at the Rice 2019 Engineering Design Showcase. My team’s project was to design a device which assisted individuals with highly-limiting mental and physical disabilities mount a horse from a wheelchair so that those individuals could benefit from Equine Therapy. After completing the project, I truly believed we had created something special, and I am wildly proud of my work and the work of our team.

I hope to continue developing engineering design skills throughout my life so that I can achieve my goal of designing my own car. While this dream seems lofty and far off at the moment, I know that as I broaden my knowledge throughout my career that I will steadily gain the resources to bring this idea to fruition.

My hope is that ENGI 210 will play a roll in developing some of the fundamental skills and providing the knowledge to begin pursuing this goal. I believe that developing a depth of knowledge in the tools that we have accessible here at the OEDK will be the founding pillars of my knowledge in the Engineering Industry as well as in my personal development as a ‘tinkerer’.