For Patrick Clary, growing up in California on a farm, his interest in both prompted an early question:  “Could robots be a job?”

A wifi connection at the vineyard/farm made it possible for Patrick to learn quite a bit about automation, a subject that grabbed his attention first as a hobby and then as a probable field of study at the college level.  He found that there was much more information online about the electrical aspect of automation than about the mechanical/design side.  His choice regarding a college major became clear.  At the University of California at Santa Barbara, Patrick chose mechanical engineering, and the rest, as they say, is history.

He became a “core member” of the Robotics Club as a freshman, deepening his knowledge and expertise at robot design.  Then, as a junior, he received an email that advertised a summer internship in an OSU lab where just the kind of robot research that held Patrick’s interest was being done.  His advisor not only wrote him a strong recommendation, but also knew the OSU professor who ran the lab.

The recommendation carried a lot of weight and the spot became Patrick’s.

The internship, the lab and the professor exceeded Patrick’s expectations and the experience figured heavily in what would become his next decision:  where to pursue a graduate degree.  Although he was accepted at MIT as well as OSU, the combination of his OSU internship, Boston’s high cost of living and the opportunity to receive an ARCS Scholar Award at OSU simplified the decision.

Brilliant and practical.  And to think that it all started with LEGOS!

Patrick is photgraphed with a robot named Cassie.  He wrote the firmware and worked on some of the electronics.  Read more about Cassie, the robot.