Ever since I was very young, I enjoyed taking
things apart to try and figure out how they worked. More often than not, I
couldn't get them back together :) I also spent countless
hours building models out of my Lego. First, I focused on space ships, but I was
soon introduced to the Technic line of Lego. I got my first set (#8841) when I was about
6 years old.
I was hooked. I especially had fun
with the pneumatics sets I got in later years. Needless to say, I have always
been fascinated by mechanical devices, and always wanted to build things. Even
before I had a genuine Lego motor, I had a really strong desire to motorize my
creations. I tried to make my own Lego compatible motor with a standard hobby
motor. This involved heating up the shaft with my dads propane torch, and
attempting to melt a Lego axle onto the motor shaft. (Hey, stop laughing, I was
young and foolish :) As you can imagine, this high tech procedure never quite
worked. I ended up frying the motor, and melting down a bunch of Lego axles. In high
school, I took many woodworking, machine shop, and computer graphics courses.
Machine shop especially gave me exposure to the real world of industrial machines. So,
after high school, I decided to go to the University of Toronto to study
Mechanical Engineering. I am currently in my third year of studies there. Lego
had taken a back seat during my high school years, and I tinkered with it only
very seldom. Me and my friend Geoff Paterson built a 'robot' which could drive, rotate its
turret, raise and lower its arm, and pick things up with a pneumatic claw. It was all manually
controlled with battery boxes. And since I only had two Lego motors, one of those
motors was a tape recorder motor with a Lego gear shoved onto the shaft! This
was the pinnacle of my pre-Mindstorms Lego. After being away from it all for
quite some time, I heard about Lego Mindstorms when I was just starting
university. I couldn't believe it. I had to have one. I didn't ask for a
Robotics Invention System, I told my parents that's what they were
getting me. Boy was it a long wait until Christmas! So... when I got the set, I
dove in right away, and have become more of a Lego maniac than ever! I
absolutely love being able to dream up robots and mechanisms, and then actually
build them! Lego is an incredible medium for creative expression (especially
creative expression with gears!). All of these countless hours spent
tinkering and figuring out how mechanisms work, and building models and robots
has me wondering: Why am I so fascinated by this? What is it about me that just
has to be able to dream, invent and create? I believe that this is the way God
has made me. He is the
source of creativity, and I thank him for inspiration and purpose.
