About Me

By:
Parker LW

Short Engineering Autobiography:

From as far back as I can recall I have always had an engineering mind. When I was really little, I was obsessed with sprinklers… Then Legos… then snap circuits which eventually lead to the culmination of the two, Lego Mindstorm and Lego technic. This enabled me to learn many principals of engineering and math while I was still in elementary school playing with the mechanical aspects as well as learning to program my Legos to carry out tasks on their own, all things I remember fondly from my child hood. When I advanced to grade 6 and 7 I was presented with the school science fair where I was further encouraged to follow my love for mechanics, electronics, and the scientific process. For my first science fair I schemed up a plan to acquire the material necessary to build an electro magnetic accelerator that I could use and experiment with. I had recently discovered the power of high voltage capacitors and was able to source some 30+ used disposable cameras from my local Walgreens to pull the capacitors and charging circuits out of as purchasing these materials was not in my 6^th grade budget. I had enough wire and circuitry in my tool box of electronics, that I had for tinkering and I was able to build a miniaturized Rail Gun that fired metal projectiles at safe but exciting speeds across my garage. My project ended up being a huge success at the science fair and I was fueled to improve my design for the next years fair by switching my magnetic rails to copper coils and improving capacitor discharge with a specialized firing circuit. After Fair 1 and 2 I dove deeper in to Computer programming by taking my schools computer and game design classes to which I animated scenes using flow state programming and designed a multi hour long RP Game, to which I was awarded the best game our teacher has ever seen a middle schooler create. Remember, this was all before I entered Highschool. Once in high school I proceeded to take all the programming classes they offered learning early concepts of C, Java, and Python while experimenting building programs. I continued my love for engineering when I got my first car and became driven to learn everything there was to know about engines and automotive control units. This lead way to my introduction to microcontrollers where taught myself how communicate with CAN bus, build IR controllers, send signals through RF, and control relays over Wi-Fi utilizing the affordable ESP8266 and ATmega architectures. My computer gradually became full of different software, IDEs, and program sketches that I had designed. I was intrigued with the up and coming concepts of Internet of Things and many of my projects became cheap smart home like creations consisting of microcontrollers, circuit boards, wires, and peripheral devices. Throughout my years into adult hood I stayed following my love for programming, electronics, and engineering.  So when it came down to deciding what career I wanted to follow Engineering was clearly the way to follow my passion. While I was intrigued with Civil and Loved everything Mechanical my true passion was Electrical and anything else computer related. I was a high achieving student out of high school and decided to attend Washington state University and enroll in their College of Engineering. I further learned enhansed my engineering knowledge while honing my skills finding that I already had strong back ground in my previous experiences. I am now a degreed engineer building my career doing what I love.