University of Pennsylvania - B.S. in Mech. Engineering

Prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

A deployable face shield, a reshapable room, and a windshield using adaptive electrical impulses to darken, depending on the sun–My ideas for patent applications were rather silly when I was younger. In all these cases, I engineered in order to have intellectual property for hypothetical future endeavors. But when I found myself swerving back and forth on a quad scull boat instead of the intended straight line, an idea popped into my head.

“Sunny, Sweep!” our boat screamed, filling our voices with gumption and our buzzing bodies with adrenaline despite our boat shaking more violently than a wind turbine. The shouts of Fox and Sawyer behind me pierced through the noise—they were strong freshmen, but condemned to the back of the boat for their lack of form. Once the race began, our boat veered off to the side. Amid the swing’s chaotic rhythm, I diverted attention away from the rowers and thought to myself, “as long as I hold the ideal ratio, I’m not the problem!” I braced myself for a heavy pull and felt a sharp bolt up through my spine–our “swing” was so disjointed that the handle of Sawyer’s oar jabbed into my lower back.

In rowing, “set” refers to the balance of the boat. But even more important is rowing in sync, known as “swing.” Our coordination was so off that oars clashed, upsetting the boat and preventing us from holding a straight course. Each year presented the same challenge: brawny freshmen would infiltrate our small varsity lineup before we had three years to refine our synchronization.

When water drenched us as we hoisted the boat over our heads, reminding us of the glaring issues with our set, I thought, “surely we didn’t have to repeat this endless cycle starting from zero every year.”

Trailing behind, coaches delayed individual feedback until after practice. ‘What if rowers could receive individualized, real-time feedback?’ I immediately thought of a pressure-sensing oarlock, capable of judging when each rower inserted their oar into the water and returning audio feedback in real time. I taped wires to carbon handles, rigged sensors, and ran it through a central computer.

Upon testing, I watched oars catch simultaneously, registering as perfect strokes, but the boat looked off; I turned my gaze to the rowers themselves. Some would rush to the catch or wait after coming out of the stroke. I realized the problem was the pressure sensor’s prioritization and how my design forced rowers to match up to an “ideal rhythm.” We had to follow each other, and when rowing, I had to follow my team.

Starting over from scratch, I based the timing off the most tortured rower, the stroke seat! I installed an accelerometer and connected a local GPS module in order to take a more holistic snapshot of each rower's stroke. Instead of following my manufactured ideal, they followed the stroke seat. This time, I wasn't engineering people into sync based on artificial ratios; I was drawing their attention to the momentum of others in the boat.

When I row nowadays I direct my attention toward the swing of the boat instead of the ideal rhythm in my head. Similarly, when I play cello, I ignore my digital tuner and tune to the ensemble. I’ve learned that precision is not always about control but connection, therefore rendering my earlier inventions unrealistic–people will never use a deployable face shield if its features make it clunky and obtrusive. A windshield design will fail if it distracts the driver or behaves erratically. Instead, it should adapt its electrical impulse based on the position of the driver in relation to the sun rather than solely on the sun’s strength. Engineering needs to account for natural human behavior. As an engineer, I will design assistive technologies to help people combine internal intention and external coordination–listening, adapting, and supporting people where they truly are.