Hey everyone! My name is Anika Gupta, and I am a sophomore from Martel majoring in mechanical engineering. I love learning how things work and making, and I am in the OEDK all the time. I like working on different projects at the OEDK, whether that be under an EDES class, helping a senior design team, or just coming up with something new. I am a part of way too many clubs and organizations at Rice, including Rice Robotics Club, Team Anemos (building a new wind tunnel), Rice Bhangra (Indian folk dance competition team), various Martel committees, Martel Moms (our flag football team), and Rice Bikes. I just really like doing things. My interests are basically anything engineering, sports and working out, and helping people.
One thing I have made that I am proud of is a cheetah enrichment ball for the Houston Zoo. I worked on this in the ENGI 120 class last fall. At first, we weren’t sure if we would make a final product, as the ENGI 120 class doesn’t always get you to a final prototype. However, my team carried our project on through ENGI 200 to complete our prototype. We created a small robot that moves inside of a round shell to move it around, like a self moving basketball for the cheetahs to play with. It worked like a giant Sphero, which is a robotic toy. I loved working on this project and our prototype is now going through approval at the zoo. We are hoping to see it in action soon! I’m super proud of what we produced and of my team for creating a working product.
Something I want to make is a drone or RC plane. I love everything aerospace, and I’d love to be an aerospace engineer. These projects seem like a super cool way to learn something new about how different aircraft work. I have looked into making a drone or RC plane before and it just seemed too hard to do, mainly because of the electronics and parts that I’d have to manufacture. I’m hoping that either after this class or just someday in the future I can make one of these things, or even make a drone or plane for use in the real world.
In ENGI 210, I hope to gain expertise in working with tools in the OEDK. I want to be able to know what tool is best to use for each task I need to do, and I want to be able to use those tools in a creative and practical way. I think this will also help improve prototypes I make in the future for various projects. I’m looking forward to all the cool stuff we are going to make in this class!
