Team Members:
- Faris Saleh Alzahrani
- Ryan Lee Jarick, project leader
- Franklin Kevin Licos
- Kyle Eric Linner
- Yash Patel, project procurement lead
- Simon Teweldemedhin Tecle
My name is Faris Saleh Alzahrani. I am now a UA alumnus majored in Mechanical Engineering. I chose to be a mechanical engineer to help make the world a better place in the ways I could apply myself.
I am the first member of my family to have studied abroad and graduated from one of the prestigious schools in the United States. I chose to study in the United States for the quality education offered, certainly in the Engineering field. I have always been interested in the process of problem solving; breaking down tasks and watching the pieces come together to form a solution has always brought joy to my heart. I started experiencing this feeling in its purist forms in high school as my first car used to break down. My father was fed up with my car always breaking down because of my driving style, and that forced me to occasionally take care of things myself. After high school, I applied for the SABIC scholarship program to study Mechanical Engineering abroad and was accepted as one of 73 students out of the ~ 5000 students who applied to the program. The first part of the program was a preparatory stage where I studied English in the University of Arizona Center for English as a Second Language (CESL) for 18 months. Then, I applied to the University of Arizona in the fall of 2017.
Being part of the many collaboration opportunities during my undergrad years has opened my eyes to many perspectives in both the technical and the personal aspects of life. Certainly, working with JMS on my senior design project has greatly reinforced my engineering foundation as I now have a sufficient understanding of how much difference I could potentially make during the next steps of my career as an engineer.
I am Ryan Jarick and I graduated with my Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in May 2021. However, I am continuing my education at the U of A through their Accelerated Master’s Program in ECE, which will allow me to complete my Master’s as early as May 2022. I am very interested in the theory and applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, especially with regards to autonomous vehicles. I have been involved with the Arizona Autonomous Vehicles Club and I’ve worked as an intern in Honeywell’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle division. Autonomous vehicles are an extremely exciting concept, from autonomous drone package delivery to automated freight networks and even inner-city air transportation. I’m continuing my education at the U of A to be able to work with some of the amazing professors here and gain more experience in the autonomous vehicle world.
My name is Yash Patel and am currently studying Systems Engineering with an Electrical Engineering minor. I am very interested in taking apart machinery to find out what makes them function. Going through a couple systems, I found a fondness of the design process that can turn many intricate parts into one functioning machine. This was the primary reason why I chose my degree path so that I can be a part of the design process to create a next generation machine. I hope to work for a company to create next generation products so that I can see my ideas molded into functioning products. Right now, I work at Apple with their customer service department to assist customers with their products; however, I would like to work with their hardware team to produce next generation devices.