Team Leader Video: Eugene Kim

Name: Eugene Kim

 

Team: Composites

 

How long you’ve been in Engineering: All four years of high school.

 

Leadership Position Description (what you do as the team leader): Though I am the leader of the composites team, I do not lead as much as follow. I help my team when they are in need of help and they learn from the experience. It is fun to teach my fellow teammates how to do the things that make them proud of being a part of Composites. Yet, even if I help and teach, it is not the team that reaps all the benefits of this relationship. They, in turn, help me and teach me how to become a better teacher, leader, and person.

 

What got you interested in Engineering in the first place: I was interested in Engineering when I was first introduced to the program through their visit to Newton Middle School. I was awed by the possibility of making a solar car and even the stray thought of driving the “car of the future.” Perhaps, what had me so interested in this foray was the thought that I could be part of this movement to make something so interesting and futuristic. I had always seen high-end projects in magazines and on the covers of newspapers. I did not have the thought of being involved in any way. So when this opportunity came to me, it seemed an interesting adventure into the unknown.

 

Favorite thing about Engineering: Comradeship. I enjoy the company of people of a like mind.

 

Most memorable moment in Engineering: My memorable moment was when the Composites team and Chris Liu infused the top body for Infusion. It was a night we’ll never forget. We encountered problem, but we had stridden over them all. We had an air leak over a large part of the body and I had to fix it since one cannot infuse with leaks. It took nearly the whole of the night to fix it. I had to go from beneath the mold and caulk all of the joints and possible leakage points. Have you ever done something overhead and at a weird angle while lying on your back on a piece of two by four? If you have, then you would have felt some of the backaches from just that process of the entire procedure. It was one heck of a ride, but we managed to finish it all. It was a moment of pure bliss when the resin spread throughout the entire part and we stood over it with pride.

 

Projects Worked On and what grade you were in: I worked on the Tempest solar boat in freshmen year. It was an enjoyable experience and always fun. During sophomore year, I worked on the Infusion plug and most of the seniors went to Cerritos to work on it. I worked on Solar Shadow III when I was in my junior year. It was a fun project, though it was a bit shoddy because only I and another senior were really working on it. Even when I remember it now, I will always remember it as being fun because of the one tool required to cut out the entire body structure for the car: The Grinder. When I go home, I would take a shower and pure black water would pool around my ankles from all the carbon fiber dust that would collect on my body. It was truly a fun and itchy project. This year has been mostly occupied with finishing Infusion.

 

Future Plans: The goals for this year is to build the body for another solar car and also another body for an electric vehicle, so that we might be able to have one of the most streamlined bodies in any of the races that involve alternatively powered vehicles.