Quick Facts
Photo of me:
M.S. Mechanical Engineering (Dec 2022)
-Computational Nuclear Engineering
-4.0 Grad GPA
B.S. Mechanical Engineering (May 2020)
-CS Minor (Pursuing)
-Business Minor
-3.73 Major GPA
Projects
A few of my passion and school projects
CONVERTING A GASOLINE POWERED CAR INTO A BATTERY POWERED ELECTRIC VEHICLE
TV Spot
Overview
This is the project that ultimately made me become an engineer. I started a club in highschool with a group of my friends and teachers, and we purchased a 1990 Toyota Supra to convert into an electric vehicle. I'm incredibly proud of the work we put into this project. Unfortunately not a ton of documentation is left over, but feel free to peruse what I have.
My EV Story
September 2016
I founded the Electric Vehicle Conversion Club and fleshed out my deep love for engineering, and it was the unique, untested environment I put myself in that is responsible for my honed interests.
Joining the first graduating class of a Montessori high school came with great risk since the school had no track record, and I had never experienced a Montessori community before, but the school promised a freedom to work on projects that I could not turn away. There would only be fourteen in the first class, so a marquee Texas football team was out of the question, but the lure of real world experience and collaborative projects was more than enough to fill that void.
Two years ago I founded the EV club with the goal of converting a gasoline powered vehicle into an electric car. Through collaboration I was able to overcome many challenges most teenagers would never face. Decision on our battery system our greatest challenge. The product of different battery chemistries is highly variable. For example a nickel hydride battery may have superior longevity (desirable for vehicles) and substantial energy density, but it comes at a higher cost because the power input and draw from the battery is very inefficient. Lead Acid batteries are far too heavy for a vehicle with a small load bearing capacity, and require maintenance, but are very cheap. Our team would have to measure the costs, voltage, volatility, longevity, and watt hours for each system. This included the accommodation of five year cost of maintenance and different power converters- AC/DC for charging and DC/DC for discharging. Evaluating battery chemistries quickly became overly difficult and tedious work, so I created a Gantt chart to organize, and smooth our efforts. In just one week my Gantt chart broke one month of stagnation as we selected our battery system and chemistry.
Our EV club reached out the top EV professionals in Texas and established great connections with Revolt in Austin, Texas and Adam Clark in Humble Texas. Adam Clark eventually became our tentative mentor and a visit to Revolt was crucial to accomplishing our far-fetched goal. Business management played a large part in the project as well. We wrote grants to raise funds for the conversion and contacted local businesses for sponsorships and collaborated with the school administration to learn about how to run a capital campaign. The vision of converting a car was more productive than I could have ever imagined.
In October of 2014, I was a speaker at the TedxYouth event in Houston. The talk covered environmental implications of carbon emissions and I recommended our project as a solution to the global challenge. The TED Talk was the validation of two years of work from the EV club.
The project allowed me to collaborate with industry professionals as peers, lead a team of my schoolmates, speak on the Houston news, refine my passion for engineering, and much more. The experience has rounded me, and I have had a more fruitful high school career because of it. I often remember how lucky I am to be where I am, but I also remember that I am here because I decided to take initiative to lead others and follow ideas. I made the difficult decision to leave my friends and established community to join a brand new school where I knew I could pursue my dreams.
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