Tyler Colenbrander

I feel like a person’s desk or workspace can tell you a lot about them. So, I’ll reveal my darkest secrets and take you on a tour of my desk at Caltech! To begin, I’ll note that the dorm rooms have varying sizes/types of desks, so not all of them look like this; for example, bunk bed rooms in some houses have a desk as the bottom “bunk”, and so the desk spans the entire length of the bed. In comparison, mine is a standalone desk with some shelves on top of it. Regardless, I think what matters more is what a person chooses to put on/around their desk, so it’s time to show you all the nerdy things I have decorated my desk with.

This past term, I took EE154a: Practical Electronics for Space Applications, which was one of my favorite classes I’ve taken at Caltech so far! In the class, we learned about electronics and systems in the space environment through hands-on labs, and then we used that knowledge to create payloads for a high altitude balloon (HAB) launch into space! To start off the class, in the lab, we characterized various systems like an RC (resistor-capacitor) filter, an Arduino oscillator, different sensors, etc. at various temperatures and pressures in a thermal vacuum chamber, shown here:

Title image: Caltech students crowding around the windows to see Steph Curry shoot, credit: Mark Medina

This past year was so different than most of us could have ever imagined. Living in “the virtual school year” posed a plethora of challenges, but at the same time, it opened the door to new possibilities. As a society, we learned how to better operate in a virtual world, and as individuals, we had time for new endeavors. For myself, this meant taking the leap of faith to move away from home and live with some fellow Techers. While I had already had the experience of moving away from home and coming to live in the Caltech houses, this was quite different. Instead of living in organized student residences with hundreds of other students, a meal plan, and tons of support resources, I was about to go live with just 5 other people (some of which I did not know super well) and we had to find and manage our own housing, food, and necessities.