Biography
Lee is from a small town in Washington State called Chehalis. He currently attends Washington State University as a Senior in Mechanical Engineering, after graduating from Centralia College in 2016. Interest in Engineering as a career started from a young age, sparked by the recent availability of personal computers in the late eighties and early nineties. Since then, his interest has narrowed to mechatronics, with a focus on control systems and additive manufacturing.
Prior to returning to college in 2013, he worked in the retail world for 14 years. He worked at Staples for the majority of the period, working his way up to a department manager. He was responsible for executing sales targets, customer retention, and human resources for his staff. He found himself wanting a life change in 2013, and decided to drop his steady career to pursue a degree and a more interesting career.
Having spent his young adult years in the work force, Lee has a viewpoint which is different from his college peers. He has taken on project leader roles in most classes and extracurricular activities, applying the experiences he had as a manager in the retail space to ensure teams work well together while also ensuring goals are met. Some of the projects that he has been a part of are: a 3D printed DSLR camera stabilizer, design for a scale model of a hydroelectric dam for a natural park, and the design proposal for a power to gas system to be located in Spokane, WA.
At Centralia College, he twice earned a $10,000 STEM scholarship from the National Science Foundation, and was awarded the colleges 2015-16 All-USA Scholar Phi Theta Kappa scholarship for his academic achievements.
On graduation, he hopes to work in a mechatronics application, developing robotics which assists people in their daily lives. His primary area of interest is the development of 3D printing technology, which is increasingly being used not just for prototyping, but for mass production of high quality, detailed, parts. This technology has the potential to also reduce costs in industry, as expensive molds are able to be eliminated as this technology matures.
In his free time, Lee spends time working in his maker space on his 3D printers, developing more efficient methods of maintaining them, while experimenting with new designs of motion systems.
Research
Lee is engaged with developing methods of fabrication for tune-ably compliant materials. Applications for these materials focus on actuation in soft robotics, reducing the reliance on hard components, such as servos and their associated electronics.
Interests
- Robotics, especially for use in manufacturing. Think CNC machines and 3D printers.
- The early space program, and the modern renaissance in private space programs.
- History, with a particular focus on:
- English history, spanning the post Roman period until the Edwardian period.
- Neo-Assyrian, Achaemenid Persian, and early Roman periods.
- Post-Civil War America (Postbellum), until the Spanish American War
- Massively Multiplayer Games, such as World of Warcraft and Destiny 2.