CMU

Supplement Essay #1

Prompt: Most students choose their intended major or area of study based on a passion or inspiration that’s developed over time – what passion or inspiration led you to choose this area of study? (300 word maximum)

Word count: 461/300 First Draft Over the past three years, my summer courses have provided a solid foundation in remote sensing, data science, climate change, and applied machine learning. During the MIT BeaverWorks course on Remote Sensing, I learned how to manipulate large datasets from satellite images to monitor environmental changes. From my class at Berkeley, I learned how carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere impact water levels. My latest course at UCLA, Data Science, taught me how to apply various machine-learning techniques. I discovered the basics of computer vision and image processing while building robots. I learned about eco-hydrology and remote sensing in my nightly calls with Engineers Without Borders from Israel while discussing rainwater solutions for the Maasai tribe.

I combined the knowledge gained from summer courses, self-study, and industry experts to help 30,000 Maasai by planning the placement of water harvesting units. Using satellite imagery, I trained an object detection model to identify and generate a heatmap of the most populated Maasai living locations. This work identified eight zones where access to water is critical, based on a density map and the distance from bodies of water. This work is helping us deploy 100+ rainwater harvesting units across 500 sq. miles, which will reduce time spent searching for water. This can allow for greater time in school and more focus on income.

This summer, I was invited to present my work on machine learning for earth observation at an academic conference in the UK. Of the 100 academics and industry experts in attendance, I was the only high school student. Meeting the researchers, I realized how much more can be done to help the parts of the world disadvantaged by the effects of climate change. I want to continue to use remote sensing through robotics to scale my skills further.

CMU has so many options for me to continue to push my skills further—the B.S. Robotics is just the beginning. For example, 16-823 Physics-based Methods in Vision focuses further on image processing in all areas, from remote sensing and robotics to medical imaging, so I can continue to use these skills at a higher level. 16-667 - “Autonomous Air Vehicle Design and Development” could allow me to develop my drone clusters to map the Northern Tanzanian wilderness in a much higher definition. To pursue these fields, I want to work in the DROP labs with professor Johnson-Robertson to make these logistic goals happen. I want to use technology with basic sciences to bring scarce resources, such as water, to hugely disadvantaged parts of the world.

Over 2 billion people lack access to clean water today, and the situation worsens daily. I want to pursue an interdisciplinary education that combines Robotics with Environmental and Sustainability Studies to meaningfully contribute to this global problem.

Supplement Essay #2

Prompt: Many students pursue college for a specific degree, career opportunity or personal goal. Whichever it may be, learning will be critical to achieve your ultimate goal. As you think ahead to the process of learning during your college years, how will you define a successful college experience? (300 word maximum)

Word count: 443/300 First Draft

One in every four humans on earth doesn’t have access to clean water. I want to collaborate with international organizations and utilize technology to bring scarce resources, such as water, to hugely disadvantaged parts of the world. To have a transformative impact in such a complex space we need to bring policy, engineering/ technology, and earth/environment sciences together across research and industry.

In my interactions with CMU PhD student Ananya Rao, I learned how she has done research combining robotics and image recognition. Similar to research being done on “Using Drones and Remote Sensing to Understand Forests with Limited Ground truth Data” by David Russell [Aug’23], I have a paper in peer-review on “Using Object Detection on Satellite Imagery for effective placement of rainwater harvesting units in Tanzania”. I want to see how I can extend learning to water access challenges.

I would like to Minor in Environmental and Sustainability Studies and continue my education with CREST. CREST me get a deeper understanding of complex environmental systems and how to apply technologies to address the multifaceted challenges of climate change.

Given the work I have done in Tanzania on remote sensing and rainwater harvesting with the Maasai, I am hoping to work with CMU-Africa closely. I would like to work with Prof. Tim Brown, who leads research on how drones can be applied to agriculture and help the Maasai. Similar to my collaboration with the Engineers without Borders, in Israel, I look forward to collaborating with fellow engineers from the African Engineering and Technology Network (Afretec).

On the weekends, I hope to be at TechSpark working on building custom trophies, restoring vintage cars, or working on Field and Service Robots similar to the Creative Labs at my current highschool. On campus, I hope to be a part of The Sustainability Studio and continue work in support of social and environmental justice while building a lifelong community of friends and peers. I want to bring fellow members to Tanzania to work with me on the Masaai water access problem.

Success for me won’t just be measured by grades or academic achievements but by the impact my work can have on global issues like water scarcity. I envision engaging in research projects, internships, and collaborations with faculty and peers that allow me to apply theoretical knowledge to practical problems, similar to my work with the Maasai tribe in Tanzania. I believe that learning should extend beyond the classroom and be intertwined with practical applications that have tangible effects on people's lives. Success will also mean building a network of mentors and peers who share my commitment to engineering excellence, social impact and gaining the skills and knowledge necessary to make meaningful contributions after graduation.

Supplement Essay #3

Prompt: Consider your application as a whole. What do you personally want to emphasize about your application for the admission committee’s consideration? Highlight something that’s important to you or something you haven’t had a chance to share. Tell us, don’t show us (no websites please). (300 word maximum) Word count: 643/300

First Draft

I believe that “Impatience is a virtue,” especially if it's applied in finding solutions to innovation and engineering. I am always trying to make my life more efficient. Here are five real experiences that showcase how my impatience led to new innovation.

In 2022, when I was a salesman and mechanic at a nearly 50-year-old bike shop, a new shipment of handlebars came to the shop. It was here that I realized how inefficient the inventory management system was. The owner had a filing cabinet filled with thousands of catalog cards of every type of tire, frame, chain, handlebar, valve, and such, along with its marked price and supply levels. Healthily impatient after spending hours restocking handlebars galore, I searched the internet for more efficient ways to track inventory. Using a digital inventory program I installed on the shop’s computer, I spent the next six months working from 9 am to 3 pm, digitizing the inventory whenever I wasn't working the floor. Now, searching for ⅞” handlebars in any size takes 5 seconds versus 20 minutes of searching in a catalog box.

While working in the auto shop on campus, I helped rebuild an old Land Rover Defender from the 60s. While removing parts of the wiring harness, I also realized that the fuel filter casing was cracked and would leak fuel if the engine started. Looking online for replacements, I learned that the fuel filter only existed in specific vehicles. Ordering a replacement meant ordering another car to replace a single part. Impatient as I was, I quickly measured the dimensions of the fuel filter, the threads, and the mounting screws and threw together a design in CAD, and 3D printed it in an afternoon. It fit like a glove.

While designing robots for our robotics team, I found it incredibly cumbersome to start anew with the parts every time I wanted to build a bot. Every piece requires me to look it up online and download the pieces into each file to use them. My impatient self created a dependency library in Fusion 360 so that anyone in our Fusion project could quickly import components as dependencies for their designs. My library contains everything from wheels and motors to extrusions and electrical components. A great unintended feature of the library is that you can instantly see all of the parts used on a design in the dependency list, meaning we can quickly gather the parts and prototype components we have designed.

When gathering image data of Maasai living units to train my object detection model, I realized the process took too long. For just the initial 2000 images, it took nearly 8 hours. I scoured the internet for methods to generate more training data from preexisting data. I stumbled across the practice of data augmentation. I identified non-essential characteristics of our image dataset and wrote a simple Python script to create rotated copies of all the images in our dataset. Our initial accuracy was around 35%, which jumped to 91% after the data augmentation.

When my friend and I wanted to revive our school’s previously extinct improv club (Kitsch), we didn't want to go through all the hassle of recruiting students through fliers and emails; it's just too much busywork. I wanted to have a whole club up and running in a day. So, being the impatient kids we are, we set up shop in the back of the theatre building, our target members, where we could silently poach students from their rehearsals. By the end of our first practice, we already had 10 students, all from the theatre program.

If “impatience is a virtue,” then I'm a saint. Whether I’m bringing my 50-year-old bike shop into the 21st century or fabricating parts for a car that belongs in a museum, I will always find innovative ways to make life easier through my questionable…solutions.