For my first blog post I figured I would say a little bit about myself and what excites me.

I spent a lot of time as a kid making stuff and taking things apart. The challenge of making something work or figuring out why it worked was almost addicting and led me to make some fun/funny projects over the years.

My first big project I remember building was a potato cannon (or spud launcher) when I was about 12. If you aren’t already an expert in this field, there are generally two types of potato cannons – combustion and pneumatic. The combustion cannons were popular probably because they are very simple to make. They were a little difficult and dangerous to operate because you had to unscrew a cap on the combustion chamber, spray in hair spray as the propellant, and quickly close it again. Once the potato and propellant were in the cannon, you fired it with a BBQ lighter.

This all sounded very dangerous to my parents, rightfully so, and they did not hesitate to restrict me from making one. Thankfully I had been obsessively researching potato cannons on the internet and already knew that they could be pressurized with air instead. The pneumatic method was approved, and I set off on building multiple pneumatic cannons over a year or so, including one with a modified irrigation valve for a faster actuation time (which meant higher powered launches). By the end of my fascination with potato cannons I was probably launching potatoes over 100 yards.

So what does spud launching have to do with computers? Probably not much, but I think it’s very important to remember what excites you. For me it’s always been seeing something cool and making it myself, and right now I’m really excited about the impact that computers have on the world. Programming was pretty intimidating at first, which is probably the reason I didn’t start doing this earlier. I think I’ve overcome that hurdle for the most part at this point. I’ve been fortunate enough to pivot my career in this direction with the OSU program, and am really excited to work on a project I’m passionate about in this capstone course.