LEGOs (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love engineering)

Despite what my previous post might suggest, I have not always been fascinated by the space program, NASA, or even engineering in general. I’m pretty sure I’ve always been a nerd though.

A large portion of my childhood was spent playing with LEGOs. I would build lots of different things out of LEGOs, but I mostly focused on putting together houses with my little square blocks. Once I discovered that there were people who did this kind of thing in real life and that those people were called architects I more or less decided on what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I started reading books about architecture and quickly learned that you needed to be able to draw to become an architect. This was a rather depressing development for me, mainly because I had a lot of trouble drawing anything that was even remotely…not horrible.

Right around this same time period our family got our first computer. Like every other kid my age I found out that computer games were awesome and that I really, really, really enjoyed controlling little pixilated objects. Sometime around junior high school I decided to abandon my hopes of becoming an architect (all those video games sort of got in the way of teaching myself to draw) and decided instead to get a job working on computers someday. Now, at the time I didn’t know that “working on computers” was not actually a job description. I started reading up on computers, watching TechTv, and dreaming about what it would be like if I had enough money to build an awesome computer.

My definition of an aweosme computer.

By the time high school was about half way over I realized two important things that would forever change my life: 1) Jobs in the IT industry were about as interesting and fun as watching paint dry and 2) I was really, really good at physics. I got interested in the subject after reading a weird book that my chemistry teacher assigned one day for extra credit. I ended up reading through the entire Arlington Public Library collection on physics over the course of the next year or so and thus my path to complete geekdom was forever set in stone.

Once I had finished all of those books I decided that even tough I enjoyed the topic, physics itself was far too theoretical for me and I needed to find a career path that would allow me to be involved with more directly applicable principles. (I was probably 16 or 17 at the time.) Needless to say I wasn’t going to be one of those kids that went off to college trying to decide between majoring in anthropology or basket weaving. . (Not that there is anything wrong with that. I know a lot of great people who would major in basket weaving if my school offered it…).

During my college search I became involved with a program that NASA offered to high school kids who might be interested in engineering called “NASA Texas Highschool Aerospace Scholars” or HAS for short. (They do love their acronyms down at NASA) I got into the program in an effort to try and find out more about the engineering industry and ended up really enjoying the whole space flight thing. A few months into the program I participated in an online chat with a NASA employee who went to Baylor. I visited the campus with a friend that spring and fell in love with it.

Long story short (I know, I know, it is too late for that) in two weeks I will be entering my third year at Baylor University as a Mechanical Engineering student and I will be finishing my internship with Lockheed Martin’s Orion Crew Impact Attenuation (CIA) group tomorrow.

No really, I actually worked for Lockheed Martin this summer.

I’ve come a long way from those LEGOs. I wonder how many other engineers that company has a hand in creating over the years…