Andrew Grottkau, sophomore Mechanical Engineer from McMurtry College.
If you know Andrew Grottkau, then you must know his signature smile and extremely kind personality. As a sophomore mechanical engineer and the sports editor at the Thresher, Grottkau from McMurtry College is a highly engaged Rice student – with sass being his hidden talent. How he balances his big commitments as an engineer and a sports editor rests heavily upon his effective use of technology and application programs that he has learned from his classes.
During his freshman year as a MechE, he took a major-required course called CAAM 210 which he says “could just as easily be titled ‘MATLAB 101.’” In this course, each homework set was a new project that called for the students to write a different MATLAB program or function. Grottkau wrote programs that decoded ciphers to ones that modeled the deformation of a bridge under various loads. The fundamental MATLAB programming skills that he learned from this class proved to be extremely valuable when he started taking more major classes, such as CAAM 336. Grottkau describes that, “[this class] deals extensively with partial differential equations” and that through his understanding of using MATLAB from CAAM 210, it has helped him build “a visual perspective on abstract physical concepts such as heat flow” discussed in CAAM 336.
Like many other engineering students at Rice, Grottkau also took ENGI 120 in his freshman year – a popular class that teaches students to work in multi-disciplinary teams to design and build solutions to real-world challenges proposed by their client. Grottkau and his team were assigned to build a page-turning device for a 3D printed book created by an artist from the Art Institute of Chicago. Grottkau explains that “the main challenge of our task was that this device had to be composed with as much 3D printed material as possible. So using Solidworks was absolutely vital to our project.” Solidworks is an extremely useful application for many engineers as it can build and model creations in 3D. It also enables users to test out every moving part of their design, thereby allowing users to check their device’s functionality before having to produce it. In Grottkau’s case, Solidworks helped him and his teammates detect flaws in their page-turning device before they printed it out with their 3D printer. Grottkau goes on to say, “Using Solidworks in that class helps me to this day. I used it extensively in an internship over the summer, where I created a cyclic loading test device using the same software in my ENGI project.”
Grottkau with two other team members of his four-membered group presenting their final ENGI 200 project. PC: Gigi Rill
When Grottkau is not busy working his MechE magic in class and at the OEDK, he occupies his time editing the Sports section of the Rice Thresher to perfection. The Adobe Creative Suite programs, like Adobe InDesign and Photoshop, are particularly well-loved at the Thresher. Grottkau pridefully elucidates, “[These programs are] especially important for sports photos because, with all due respect to news and arts and entertainment, sports is objectively the section with the most exciting and eye-catching photos. We want to make sure they look good and attract readers.” In addition to overseeing how the final spread of the sports section will look, Grottkau also travels around campus interviewing amazing fellow Rice students to megastars like Charles Barkley, the Hall of Fame basketball player. This year, with the Super Bowl being hosted in Houston, Grottkau also got the chance to interview numerous football stars coaches at the Super Bowl Opening Night. During the interviews, he unfailingly uses the Voice Memos iPhone app. Grottkau speaks very highly of this app as he professes it to be “… as good as any recording device I could buy, and I definitely use it at least 2 to 3 times a week. Voice Memos has also made it easy for me to conduct and store interviews because I don’t need to carry anything except my phone.”
Grottkau interviewing football star, Trey Flowers, using the Voice Memos app at the Super Bowl Opening Night for Rice Thresher. PC: Sean Chu
Technology is undoubtedly developing at a wild pace in this century. Grottkau has shown us that by learning how to effectively utilize these technologies, balancing a credit-heavy major and pursuing extracurricular activities are certainly not two mutually exclusive goals.