When I was young I had always had an interest for computers. I mainly grew up with one in my room and was on it everyday, which lead me to want to learn more about how it works and what I could do to make it faster.

After a couple of years of learning about computers on my own and changing parts of my computer, I heard my sister join a robotics summer program and when she came home each day she spoke of how interesting it was. Telling me how she programming it and wired it to navigate obstacles with different kinds of sensors. About mid way through I started to tag along with her to the class and just watched what she did and asking her what she was doing. My sister and a teammate showed me what they had been doing and showed off a couple of cool thing she could do with the robot, and then showed me what they had to do for the competition. She and her teammate had been in a competition to see who's robot could navigate a course, come to a point where you can manually control it with Bluetooth and have it send a message saying it sensed a block of ice which came about from a temperature sensor on the robot. She placed 1st and was excited to have gone through the whole program. After which the teacher came up and congratulated her. I said to my mom how cool she is and the teacher overheard and asked if I wanted to join next summer, which I gladly accepted.

So during my freshman year of high school I became a participant. I was teamed up with my sister to learn and create my own robot from a kit. through out the camp I learned a bit of basic programming, wiring, and computer communication. through the whole time in the camp I began to exceed lesson plans and doing extra things with the robot. My sister and teacher would be surprised by how much I was doing and how much interest I had in working with the robot. Then the competition came, I was so nervous tweaking and rechecking to make sure all the components were tightly snug in there sockets. The first trial was a fail since the robot went in the course and navigated back to the entry. The judges were ok with a second attempt and the robot took another dive through course which went mostly smoothly. It got to the end read the temperature of the ice and completed the challenge. After the rest of teams went I scared that we may not win since other robots went in just a little bit faster. So when they read off the scores i couldn't believe to hear that we won 1st place. the judges gave us extra points for us putting a crafty cover over the robot while the other teams just kept it strictly kit parts.

I did participated for a second year and again won 1st place but with someone who wasn't my sister (since she had graduated high school). so after my second year of participating I was asked to become an assistant teacher, teaching other high school students how robots worked. the experience grew into a connection with Johnson Controls employees who were wanting to have me as an intern with them for when I got some college education.

All through High school I remember this experience an my attachment to robots. So at our High School there was a newer program called Project Lead the Way which was learning the basics of engineering, then going into particular basic concentrations such as architecture, mechanical, and electrical. this is where I really began to understand what I wanted to do as a career. I already was taking AP Calculus in high school and was doing well in science. with the additional knowledge from PLTW I thought of becoming a computer engineer. in addition to being in PLTW I also was in a club called Engineering Innovation which showed me to making a battle bot and doing some engineering projects with other members.

After finishing High school my mom and aunt helped me to go to a college. Initially I thought for sure doing computer Engineering but when I started taking classes I began to dislike the hardware classes and moved strictly into Computer Science to just doing the programming. after attending 2 years of classes and having my finances change I decided I should start my career not making new products but seeing what it would be like to fix and maintain them. This is where my voyage with MATC begins.

For jobs, I worked at a grocery store till I moved to start college and then while at University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. I got a cashier job at a parking garage downtown while i was at UWM. After a couple of months with the garage job i got promoted to supervisor. then when I started attending MATC I wanted to make a bit more money which is then when I got hired at Best Buy.