> [!info] Links > 🔗 [Linkedin.com | david-ryan-engineer](https://linkedin.com/in/david-ryan-engineer) > ✒️ [Medium.com | david-ryan](https://medium.com/@david-ryan) > 🖥 [Github.com | dj-ryan](https://github.com/dj-ryan) > 📬 [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) --- # Life Goals ✔ - [x] Send something to space - 2022, [[2022 - Project A.S.S.E.T.]] - [x] Send something to orbit 🛰 - 2024, [[2023 - MIRA in space]] - [ ] Send something to the moon 🌕 - [ ] Send something to Mars - [ ] Go to space? 👨‍🚀 - [ ] Go to the Moon?? - [ ] Go to Mars?!?!? ![[david_squar.jpg|500]] # Space 🌌 Where did my fascination with space start? I am not sure. It has been apart of me for a long time. As with most things that I am interested in I believe it started with the machines. I had just become a teenager and that means getting my first phone. Except this wasn't a normal phone, instead it was a glorified MP3 player. It didn't have a lot of things, like cell service for example **BUT** it did have a camera. So armed with my new piece of technology I set out to make a stop motion video. My current obsession I had at the time was my a rocket ship Lego set from the Lego City series. ![[rocket_ship_crashing.gif|500]] Above you might see a space shuttle crashing into a ULA Vulcan looking assent vehicle and then a little astronaut flying into the camera after inspecting the explosion... Or you might see the chose of jumbled frames that is my first attempt at a stop motion video. 🚀 I think I was obsessed with this Lego set because I couldn't get the image of a powerful yet controlled explosion ripping out from underneath a man made machine, conquering gravity and propelling it well outside the earth's atmosphere. It was **CAPTIVATING**. 😍 ![[moon_old.jpg|500]] It only grew from there. Next Christmas I was asking for a telescope and taking pictures (with the same glorified MP3 player) of the moon. You can barely make out its pixilated craters. 🔭 🌕 More and more I was fascinated with what lay beyond our atmosphere. I'd get books from the library and read them cover to cover. I started watching rocket launches and keeping up to date with our progress of exploration. The first propulsive booster landing from SpaceX! The first image of a black hole! The 2020 Mars rover landings! The first images from the James Webb Space telescope! It was all so exciting! 🪐 # Robot 🤖 In HS I also joined a robotics club and along with my passion for space my passion for robotics grew. It came to a rise when in 2019 my brother purchased a cheap knock off DJI drone from China. I convinced him to let me strap an Arduino, a servo, a cardboard box, a battery pack and an IR sensor to the bottom. The concept was simple: blast the IR sensor from the ground with a remote to trigger the servo to open the cardboard box and drop a parachute guy. You can find the results below. It didn't work. 🪂  Skipping ahead I started studying Computer Engineering in University and fell in love with robotics even more. Coding something on a computer and seeing it realized in the real world through a robot is a warm gooey feeling that few things can compare to. Peep my first robot I built in college [[2020 - Wall Follow]]: ![[ultrasonic-robot.jpg|400]] It followed a wall........ 🙄 # Space + Robot 🤯 Well that leads us to now: the fusion of space and robotics. I have discovered that apparently these can be combined so that is pretty great. [[2022 - Project A.S.S.E.T.]] ![[asset_top.jpg]] # Testimony I am a follower of Christ and this defines my life completely. If you are interested in learning more about this I have written my testimony and an explanation of the gospel here! [[Who is Jesus]]