Year in Review

[ “Year in Review”  is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student.  You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

G.O.A.L.S.

  • Global Awareness: In Aerospace Engineering, partnerships and international relationships are vital to succeeding in astronautical development and exploration. Through study abroad opportunities, not only will I be able to hone my interaction with other cultures, but also can better appreciate different unique mentalities for approaches towards space dynamics.
  • Original Inquiry: At my current OnRamp Accelerator Internship, skills such as problem assessment and solution application are honed as a result of selecting approaches to entrepreneurial ideas and validating them through team collaboration. Concepts are being built into start-up ideas and scholarly endeavors are transformed into inquiry projects.
  • Academic Enrichment: In Design/Build/Fly at OSU, academic knowledge such as aerodynamics and propulsion are transferred into real-life application through constructing remote-controlled, 6-foot-wing-spanned planes. Formal education is contextualized into practice and is then tested and enhanced upon through re-designs and events such as the annually AIAA’s (Applied Aerodynamics, Aircraft Design, Design) Design Build Fly Competition.
  • Leadership Development: As a current Office Assistance for Drackett Tower, greeting residents, ensuring a high-level quality of customer service, creating an inclusive atmosphere have become second nature to my repertoire of leadership through communicative skills, which is crucial to have for group projects and any collaborative tasks. By also starting my own DJ company, I’ve been able to hire and lead a team of musicians to mainly help the city of Columbus out with their events and need for musical entertainment; organization and mentoring skills are crucial when creating a team of highly qualified musical entertainers.
  • Service Engagement: As a recipient of the Presidential Volunteer Service Award for the past 4 years, I’ve accumulated over 500 hours of service learning to the community. Partaking in service opportunities, such as OSU’s Pay It Forward, heighten community awareness, are are the only way to witness social issues firsthand and shifts my engineering focus towards social responsibility.

Career

[“Career” is where you can collect information about your experiences and skills that will apply to your future career.  Like your resume, this is information that will evolve over time and should be continually updated.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Artifacts

The Wind Turbine Lab heightened my academic interest after undergoing the design process and implementing enhancements throughout the lab. Wind turbines transfer captured wind energy into power and electricity via generators. In the Wind Turbine Lab, engineers brainstormed possible airfoils for testing under a wind tunnel in order to determine the best efficiency for energy transfer. With efficiency in mind, the group was asked whether our created wind turbine blade set could power an entire residential complex (if not, then what percentage?).

Aerodynamics and fluid flow were key concepts introduced from the experiment. After testing the efficiency of different shapes for blade designs and varying the number of blades, the engineers were able to analyze the relationship between pressure, velocity, wind energy power generation, and turbine performance. As an Aerospace Engineer, I wish to pursue how different sustainable factors contribute to aerodynamic efficiency, and the Wind Turbine Lab was a perfect platform to not only introduce me to this field of exploration but also confirm my desire to help transition energy usage into renewable sources. It was determined from the lab that wind power is a viable source of energy to power everyday life in residential communities; with the incorporation of solar and other renewable sources, I’m excited to utilize my aerospace knowledge to help see sustainable fuel as the main, endless source of energy.

About Me

Hi there!

To shortly introduce myself, my name is Gaven Zou, and I am a third-year Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering student at The Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. At Ohio State, I am not only a mentor for the selective Engineering Scholars program but am also proactively involved in multiple extracurricular activities, such as rowing and serving as “Vice President – Head of Budgeting” for Ohio State Varsity Crew, leading on the executive board for the oldest and foremost professional engineering fraternity Theta Tau, and being part of AIAA Design/Build/Fly. These insightful experiences have helped me develop the crucial ability to work in team environments, and allowed me to communicate effectively with diverse groups, guiding me to success in leading a myriad of engineering projects in an ever-changing industry.

On top of my education, I also worked as an Engineering Construction Inspector for the past two years at the City of Columbus. While performing inspections and enforcing contractor compliance/conformance to city draft plans, material specifications, procedures, I became fluent in reading blueprints specifications, became experienced in writing daily reports, communicated regulations to contractors, utilized CAD software (MATLAB, Solidworks), and became advanced in Excel/Office spreadsheeting and PMIS. I helped finalize over $40 million in quantities across four projects and was treated like an Engineer in Training from the project manager during my time at the City; I reviewed calculations of payments, tracked equipment/material, maintained records and expenditures, worked in tandem with contractors to reach a consensus for quantities, and helped close out million-dollar projects.

During my time there, I received Exceeding Expectations reviews for my performance evaluation from the engineering project manager and was written a letter of recommendation for performing at high levels with attention to detail in whatever challenge I accept. In addition, I am a native Chinese and English speaker with proficiency in Spanish. My performance-driven attitude offers strong attention to detail and notable multitasking and organizational skills. Assuredly, I possess a well-developed array of technical expertise and competence with crucial programs for the position, such as the incorporation of a Rasberry Pi, organizational proficiency for large-scale data repository via Microsoft Office (Excel) and PMIS, and software programs including Solidworks, ANSYS, AutoCAD, Simulink & MATLAB, STK, Java, C++, and Python.

With this experience and trained mindset, I am now seeking a co-op where people are motivated to realize an unprecedented era of innovative advancements towards a futuristic generation of challenges in the aerospace industry.

Gaven Zou