I enjoy a number of activities and interests in my free time. Here are just a few: Hunting/Fishing/Biking Growing up in rural South Dakota has given me great opportunities to enjoy all that the outdoors has to offer. Hunting and fishing has always been a family and friends activity but it has become more difficult in an urban college setting. Katie and I picked up biking while in college and look forward to riding the trails wherever we are. SDSU Habitat for Humanity The organization that refined my purpose. I joined Habitat for Humanity Campus chapter Fall 2005 and became an officer in the organization Winter 2006. As an officer I have designed the logo that you see to the left, created a website for the group, Setup a basic online resources system for the officer team, helped to organize multiple fundraising and awareness events, and helped officers to recognize their full leadership potential. Seeing a community change one nail at a time has helped to define my purpose in a way I thought wasn't possible. "According to the commission of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it." ~1 Corinthians 3:9-10 USFIRST Robotics The organization that defined my path and how to get there. While in my Sophomore year of high school, an announcement was made that a club was being created to design, build, and operate robots. This was the beginning of my passion for engineering. The first year we had 10 interested students and our metal shop teacher as an adviser. many other schools in the area said we should just give up because we didn't have the resources that they did. That challenge would later define our team (939) as a group of ruthlessly ambitious and dedicated students that made very creative solutions to complex solutions by necessity. In 6 weeks we taught ourselves how to electrically and structurally design and program an autonomous robot using motors, pneumatics, sensors and other accessories to successfully accomplish a task. If you ask our advisor now he well still say he has no idea how a group of young students accomplished so much. By our 3rd year at regional competitions we began to become recognizable competitors that continually received praise from NASA engineers and MIT professors for our designs. Gracious professionalism elegantly explains how I intend to progress through my career and I can't wait to become a mentor for a team in the future. Wikipedia's "open" philosophy towards common knowledge is very appealing to me. Making common knowledge easily accessible is something I very much support and hope to contribute to in the future. I would like to strengthen the engineering curriculum available on the site so that students, professors, and industry leaders can work together to make learning easier and fun. MIT's OpenCourseWare is a great example of this concept. http://charterforcompassion.com/ |