Hi everyone! I’m Catherine, a junior studying Electrical and Computer Engineering from McMurtry. Hopefully, I’ll also have time to finish the Engineering Design minor. During my time at Rice, I’ve been involved in academic/engineering clubs such as Rice Wind Energy and Rice Medical Design, but also spend a lot of time dancing with BASYK or on my own time. After taking EDES 220 last semester, I’m excited to learn my way around the OEDK a little better.

One thing I’m proud of making is the Rec Center Occupancy Tracker with my ENGI120/EDES220 team. At first, I couldn’t really imagine getting the device to function as we intended, but we were able to successfully build and program it to achieve pretty high accuracy. It was also one of the first things I really built with a small team as opposed to a club, which made it extra special.

In recent years, I’ve realized that I really want to be able to create items that I can use in everyday life (jewelry organizer, custom efficient storage units) or even just random, fun things like gag gifts or Christmas decorations. In particular, I’ve been wanting to create a bed that will either mechanically launch you out or shock you once you’ve stayed in it for too long past your alarm. Since I’ve mostly focused on electrical systems & programming with a neglect for tangible things (wrangling electrons), I think that ENGI 210 will certainly make me much more well equipped to fulfill these dreams.

In ENGI 210, I hope to learn more tools and techniques that will empower me to feel more comfortable in the makerspace and give me the freedom to make the things I want. In particular, I hope to become more proficient at woodworking and 3D printing, and I also want to gain a better understanding of the general framework of thinking when it comes to the processes and the tools/techniques that need to be used to successfully build most things I want.