Hello y’all! I am Isaac Zavaleta, a sophomore Mechanical Engineering student at Duncan College with a minor in Computational and Applied Mathematics as well as a minor in Engineering Design. Here at Rice I am involved in the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership (RCEL). I am currently a TA for RCEL 200 and I encourage y’all students to take some RCEL courses since I have really learned a lot from them myself.

The only experience that I have in building things is from my time in Engi 120. Although the final result did not function very well I am still proud of the fact that my team was to complete the project. The project itself was to design a proof of concept for a device that would collect heated moon dirt and transport it to a deposit while also extracting its heat. The final product was basically just a steel Archimedes screw that was powered by a power drill.

I eventually want to build my own rocket as I am interested in pursuing Aerospace Engineering in Graduate School. I do not know when I will have the opportunity to do so but that is something I really want to do.

Even though I am a Mechanical Engineering student I still have not had much experience in actually building things, well other than Engi 120, so I am very excited to learn more about working with the tools available in the OEDK to build cool items. I specially am excited about getting involved in more 3D printing.