Hello everyone! I’m Xiaoyao Gao, a sophomore MechE minoring in Engineering Design. During ENGI 120, my team and I used up most of the OEDK’s supply of super glue while gluing some shiny balloons together, and left several irremovable, translucent patches on most of the OEDK lab tables. That’s one way to leave our mark, I suppose. Since then, the OEDK has become a rather permanent part of my life as a Rice student. To give more of an introduction, here are some facts about myself:

• All three syllables of my full name rhyme with each other
• I’m a Jones College PCA and a violinist in the Rice MOB
• This summer, I visited the OEDK for 14 consecutive days, breaking a personal record. Can I set yet another record this semester? We will see.

I spent much of the summer working in the OEDK as a SEED intern, where I worked with three other engineering students (including a student from Brazil!) on creating a physical model for the Texas Children’s Hospital. Our client, a physical therapist, worked with infants with brachial plexus palsy, an injury that causes paralysis/tightening of the arm and shoulder muscles. He wanted a shoulder model to educate parents on the irregular shoulder movements found in infants with this injury, and to teach them the proper physical therapy exercises. As part of the program, I spent 40 hours a week working on one project. It was grueling and tiring at times, but I’m very proud of my team’s final product. It was awesome getting to deliver the model to our client in the end.

I learned to use a bunch of tools while making the model (power tools, laser cutter, etc.), but there’s still a ton of cool machines I’ve been itching to try (Carvey, plasma cutter, the fancy new 3D printers….). I’ve always wanted to try making something with metal, or something with Arduinos and electrical components. In ENGI 210, I hope to develop new skills with OEDK tools I’ve never used before, and get even more experience with tools I’ve used in the past. But really, I just want to have fun building cool and hopefully weird stuff. I’ll try my best to avoid damaging OEDK property in the process.