User:SamipDesai

About Me

Hi, my name is Samip Desai and I am an aspiring Mechanical Engineer. I come from Nashua, NH where I spent a lot of my time playing soccer, hanging out with friends, and participating in outdoor activites. My favorite past time is listening to music of all genres, and I have a particular appreciation for live music. Here at Duke, in addition to my engineering major, I would also like to pursue a minor in Economics and participate in the Aerospace Certificate program. My ultimate goal would be to become an aerospace engineer.

Grand Challenge

A Material That Could Make Solar Power "Dirt Cheap", Kevin Bullis, Technology Review, created 8 August 2013, accessed 19 September 2013 (Make solar energy economical)

Favorite MATLAB Demonstration

My favorite MATLAB demonstration was the Loma Prieta Earthquake, because I was able to see exactly how powerful and versatile MATLAB is in analyzing data. With just three different directional accelerometer readings, MATLAB was able integrate the function to find the velocity components of the earthquake and graph the points in a 2-D grid. MATLAB was able to twice-integrate the acceleration readings to get the position function, which could be viewed in a 3-D subplot, making it very easy to visualize. I also found the acceleration readings (i.e. East-West and accleration during a one-second time interval) to be very interesting, and it made me realize truly how useful of a tool MATLAB can be for all professionals. The amount of output produced compared to the input is relatively high. In seeing this kind of specific application it made me understand why engineers should know MATLAB and how mastering it will surely be useful in my future career.