About Me
Background
I was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. When not playing in the snow, my childhood was spent building with LEGOs and dismantling toys. These interests have slowly evolved. I left Alaska for Pasadena, California to pursue an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering. While spending four years learning about math, science and robots I discovered a desire to use my engineering methods to solve human oriented problems. I attended graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center and focused on experience design. The project oriented on program allowed me to work in Pittsburgh, Silicon Valley and Barcelona, Spain. Both the project work and culture experience laid a foundation in designing experiences,from simple mundane products to theme parks. I am now currently revisiting my childhood passions where I am not only dissecting toys but designing and prototyping them as well.
Education
M.E.T. -- Masters in Entertainment Tehcnology
I attended graduate school at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University from the fall of 2008 to spring 2010. The program's goal is to...
"...is to have technologists and fine artists work together on projects that produce artifacts that are intended to entertain, inform, inspire, or otherwise affect an audience/guest/player/participant."
The ETC focuses on project based work. Each semester teams of students work full time with clients to deliver products ranging from educational video games to museum exhibits. My focus was on experience designs, particularly within museums and libraries.
B.S. -- Mechanical Engineering
I attended the California Institute of Technology from the fall of 2004 until spring 2008. I received a BS in mechanical engineering. My advanced classes and extra-curricular activities focused on robotics, including mechanical design, introductory path planning and motion.
I took a number of robotic and control classes in my academic studies. These included advanced robotics courses, one concerning navigation and vision and a second that focused on sensing and manipulation. Both these courses were a combination of theoretical analysis and hands-on laboratories with ER-1 robots. The controls courses I have taken also focused on PID controllers as well as an introduction to Kalman filters.
Hobbies
Bicycling
I grew up mountain biking on trails near my home. When I moved south to larger cities I took up road biking and I'm currently enjoy riding around with my commuter/touring bicycle.
Beer Brewing
Slowly, I have been learning to brew beer at home. Similar to cooking I find myself making brilliant mistakes and twice as many failures. It is a fun hobby with delicious results.