I grew up with my dad by my side. He is a automotive gearhead and I loved working in the garage, getting my hands dirty, and going to the race track with him to learn automotives and different mechanical components. With this, he has always told me I was mechanically inclined and I should pursue that as a career. Growing up in middle school and high school I started getting involved into ROBOTICS and engineering courses and I found all the information so interesting and I loved seeing how different parts run. I loved all the engineering projects and I loved the mechanicals of different assemblies, I always found it so fascinating. With this, I decided to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati. Now I am a third-year student that has completed two co-op rotations as a mechanical design engineer and I couldn't be happier with the choice I made, thanks to him. My dad started working at an assembly line for Wayne Pumps when he was just 18 years old and worked his way up to be Lead Engineer for the company. Now I am currently a first-generation women, pursuing her degree in Mechanical engineering, and I am currently on a co-op rotation for Wayne Pumps as a Mechanical Design Engineer at 20-years old. I currently design and make edits to pumps he originally created and designed 20 years ago, which is so fascinating to me. I couldn't have been here to where I am at if it wasn't for my loving dad that taught me the in's and out's to different parts all while growing up. He was there even for non-work related items. I would be at home working on a project and while doing these projects independently, I would make mistakes, as would anyone working on an independent project the first time. This used to always frustrate me and I would be down on myself for not doing something right the first time. Every time I would mess up, instead of beating me down, my dad would encourage me that is the way of learning, and then he would tell me how to fix it properly. He has always supported me and made me realize the importance of we are all human, everyone makes mistakes, and that is how we learn and all you have to do is laugh it off and push forward.

Hello, my name is Summer and I am a third year mechanical engineering student at the University of Cincinnati. I grew up with my dad, who is an engineer, I was exposed to a lot of projects at a young age. My dad and I grew up going to Edgewater motor sports park, which is a drag strip for racing cars. He has one of his own and growing up I was always in the garage with him exposed to learning new parts on cars and his creativity with creating and fixing parts. I ended up working at this drag strip for about 5 years and I still visit while im in college because I love the enviornment, racers, and getting to see their cars. This made me interested in designing components from a young age and what made me go into engineering classes at high school and eventually robotics. With this I used 3D modeling to create parts from scratch and it was not only extremely fascinating to work with the software but to be able to physically work with the parts I create and then physically assemble them and see their functionality. With this I decided to choose a degree in mechancial engineering and have been able to gain a few years of real life experience while in classes. I have worked as a mechancial design engineer at Cincinnati incorported which is a press brake and laser manufacture. Here I was able to 3D model parts and have hands on experience with heavy machinery and gain very valuable engineering and component knowledge and experience. I am so excited to branch out and gain even more machinery and automotive experience once I graduate and apply myself to a manufacturing company.

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken" - Oscar Wilde This is one of my favorite quotes out there because it reassures me that I am allowed to be who I am, there is no one else like me, and I don't need to spend the time worrying about what others think because nothing is going to change who I am. When he says, "everyone else is already taken" means that everyone around you is already their own person, so don't do things to try to be like them, unless it is bettering who you are as an individual. Be you.

My favorite artist is Derek Hugger, who designs organic motion sculptures. O.ne of his most known quotes is, "“Trying to come up with a system of mechanisms without being able to visualize the final outcome would be a nearly impossible task for me, so instead, I create the final motion first, and then work backwards to figure out all the mechanisms that can drive those motions". I find it extremely fascinating how his brain is wired and is extraordinary creative when it comes to his one of a kind creations. My favorite piece of his is named "Colibri", which is a wooden, organic, motion sculpture of a hummingbird in flight. I hope in the future, with my degree in mechanical engineering, I can learn and eventually create a piece that is just as extraordinary as his.

My vision is to graduate from the University of Cincinnati with a bachelor's degree in my hand for mechanical engineering and I also want to have a minor in art. No one in my family; including parents, siblings, or even grandparents, has attended college. I believe that was because of finances, which is why I am here now. I am paying for college out of my pocket and I am working 3 jobs in order to get a taste of college because I am determined to further my education. I know that I am majoring in engineering and this is scholarship is directed towards art majors; however, I believe I still am a perfect candidate for this scholarship. I spent the last 8 years of my life exploring the art field with different materials and I have to say I have grown tremendously. I have explored charcoals, watercolors, pens, oil paints, acrylics, spray paints, and several more. More recently I have discovered more of myself and what I like, and that is oil painting. With my artistic background, I was actually offered a tattoo apprenticeship, but I decided that I would rather continue my education in college and pursue engineering with a minor in art. The two oil paintings I have shared with you show a man and woman that are meant to represent me and my best friend. They are my original paintings and I chose them because they are extremely special to me. Without him in my life, I honestly wouldn't be where I am now. He's the reason I continued down this path and who has made me the person I am today. I am thankful for the opportunities I am given and hope I am able to pursue my dreams of furthering my education.

I struggle with a mental illness as I write this essay at midnight after a 14-hour shift, and that is depression. I personally constantly feel overwhelmed and have extremely high anxiety throughout the day. Today was simply one of those days where everything I encountered was a breaking point anything from a rude customer to my drink falling over, simply made me want to ball my eyes out; however, I knew I had to keep my composure because I knew that it was the only thing appropriate at the time, and I say that as my tears run down my keyboard while I type this out. With today being one of my very rough days, is actually what brought me to this scholarship. People do not understand that it is the people with the biggest smile on their face, are the ones who hurt most on the inside. This doesn't just go with depression but along with a ton of other mental illnesses, such as anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, and the hundreds of mental illnesses that there are. I believe that more people should be aware of these illnesses, not meaning in a way that they do not understand what they are because people understand what they are and what they mean, but people should take into consideration that even their closest friend can be suffering from one of these illnesses and not even know it. Not to sound cheesy, but people really should be nice to others because they never know what they are going through personally and the challenges they have to go through. In order to try to help others out there like me, I personally want to join a club at my college that deals with mental illnesses and recognizes them to helps others, especially college students. There is a surprising amount of college students that have depression and I want to help others who battle challenges similar to mine in order to make a change.

Math class has always been my favorite class ever since I was little. My first memory of math started with the quick 100 easy multiplication problems and I remember zooming through them like it was nothing. In high school, my favorite classes were always AP Calc, AP stats, AP Physics, along with other math and engineering courses. I believe I love numbers because of my dad. My dad has been a mechanical engineer for several years and growing up I would be right beside him, especially in his garage. I would help bring him tools, measure items, and I would learn a lot about cars and how they work, along with other mathematical lessons. With this experience at such a young age, I grew up loving math and engineering classes. I plan to follow in my dad’s step and become a mechanical engineer, receive my master’s, and work for a big company similar to him. Ever since I was in 8th grade I knew I wanted to pursue engineering as my career. I have changed a lot between architecture and mechanical, but due to where I want to pursue college, I decided on mechanical engineering due to the programs offered, pay, and the college location that provides these beneficial opportunities. With having this greater understanding of mathematics I see myself problem-solving, fixing items, and doing little things differently than many people. When people grow up loving mathematics then they have a different perspective on the world than a lot of people. They see the little details in life, really good at coming up with solutions for unexpected problems, and have a great understanding of complex relationships. A specific example that I used my engineering and mathematic skills is for a fun class project. We had to fly a paper airplane a distance of 20 feet and go over different obstacles. I started awful, my plane would touch the ground in like 10 feet. However, with several days of new designs, research, and several errored trials. I was capable of flying a plane that went over the obstacles and also went 80 feet outside! This was not something that occurred overnight, it took several trials and failures in order to learn from my mistakes and come up with a more effective product. This shows that having an engineering brain that you know everything right off the bat. It is important to understand that majority of problems of life won’t be fixed perfectly right away; however, by coming up with different solutions, finding the most effective, and with several trials, finally come to a proper solution. People should NOT be scared to fail, because everyone learns from their mistakes.

My name is Summer Lowe and I was recently accepted into the University of Cincinnati to become a mechanical engineer and I aim to receive a bachelor’s degree. The person who has inspired me to go in this direction is my engineering teacher, Mrs. Elsasser. I started taking her engineering courses in 8th grade and she even motivated me to join First Robotics. Ever since I joined her class, my passion for design and mathematics grew ever since. I am extremely thankful for her motivating me to join Robotics and going down an engineering path. Recently, I joined a club known as the Society of Women Engineers where we meet up every Saturday to influence young women to help pursue engineering just as I am, and I am excited to inspire young individuals the same way Mrs. Elsasser inspired me. My freshman year I was in First Robotics and I was in the Intro to Engineering (IED) course. I was honestly a little scared at first. Taking a course like this was different and challenging at first. I was introduced to Inventor, which I now use fusion/CAD, and it was confusing. However, with a lot of help and patience from Mrs. Elsasser, I learned very fast. I now know a lot about CAD and I feel very confident using the program. In my sophomore year, I took the Principles of Engineering (POE) course. Although Mrs. Elsasser was not my teacher for this class, she was always my go-to when I had questions and was always there for me when I needed her. In my junior year, I took Aerospace, and this is by far my favorite engineering course. We not only had extremely fun projects, but it was also educational all the way through. For example, we learned how to design accurate gliders and we were also able to compete by throwing them all the way across the building! Lastly, is my senior year, and I am currently in digital electronics. We are learning about complex gates, circuits, binary, and so much more. This is one of the harder classes considering everything in this class has to be extremely particular; however, with the help of Mrs. E, anything is possible. I cannot believe that my high school flew by just like that and I am sad to move on without having her in my college courses, but I am thankful to have her and I will continue to grow with my engineering path thanks to her.

Hello, my names Betty and my owner's Instragram handle is "Summerlowe918"! In this picture, I believe I told her, "Wait! Get my good angle in this sunlight! Yes! That is definitely Instagram Perfect."