Robotics Guy

My name is Nathan and I am a junior studying electrical engineering at Liberty University. Over the years I have developed a passion for science and technology, something that I hope to share with others through this website.

To tell you a bit about myself, my freshman year of high school I became interested in video game development and purchased a license to Conitech’s 3D Gamestudio engine. After spending several months learning the engine’s scripting language and acquiring basic programming skills, I realized the engine had severe limitations that hindered my learning. After researching many alternatives, I concluded the Torque Game Engine was best option.

Learning Torquescript – a scripting language somewhat derived from C++ – proved to be a great stepping stone from 3D Gamestudio’s basic scripting language to slightly more challenging programming. I worked on many projects using Torque, and although I never releasing a full-featured game I was constantly learning and having a lot of fun in the process. My plans for becoming a games developer tycoon were foiled, however, when a friend invited me to join a local robotics club.

After attending a few meetings, I quickly joined FIRST team 1501 as a programmer. Before the experience of being on a FIRST team I really had no idea what “engineering” was, and thought “robots” were – for the most part, at least – science fiction fantasies. My perspective on these things changed quickly! During my time on team 1501 – over a period of two years – I was a programmer, webmaster, robot driver, and student vice president. Occasionally, I helped out with electronics.

Being on the robotics team was an incredible learning experience and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to work side-by-side with professional engineers; an experience which has strongly influenced my decision to study engineering. Spending time with engineers taught me invaluable lessons, such as learning how to work as part of a team on difficult projects with time limitations. I can’t thank the mentors and students on team 1501 enough for the valuable, life-changing experience I gained while working with them. My time in the FIRST robotics competition has instilled a strong desire in me to learn more about science and technology, which is hopefully something that will stick with me the rest of my life.

Thanks for visiting my website. I hope the fun and educational projects that I’ve worked on will inspire you to develop your own interest in science and technology.