Life Safety
In addition to my fascination with technology, living in California has influenced my interest in various Life Safety systems. When I was 2 years old, our family was evacuated from our home because of the 91,281 acre Old Fire (2003) in the San Bernardino Mountains. In 2009, we again were evacuated because of the Station Fire in Los Angeles County, which burned approximately 160,577 acres. My brother and I began researching about notification systems and fire safety and several of our Science Fair Projects in High School focused on this interest. The knowledge we gained about Fire Safety actually helped save our own home when our house was accidentally set on fire when we were in high school.
LINK to event: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bqEfziUKFZJUFNQFhJU5Ja03OETP_xxA/view?usp=drive_link
Testing a fire suppression system: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AuGkSy2MeoBDcIkkurKMrpBhvfcKdhlz/view?usp=drive_link
I even went so far as to take a course at Glendale Community College in 2020 on Fire Protection Systems, a course typically taken by Firefighters.
My interest not only involves looking at fire systems, it involved into researching sprinkler controls, and security systems, and in understanding how these critical technologies communicate and work together to protect buildings and the people inside them. Much of my learning comes from hands-on experimentation and independent research. I have reverse engineered legacy alarm panels, studied the logic behind them, and installed and configured vintage addressable fire alarm control panels to better understand early building automation and signaling systems. What fascinates me most is the communication infrastructure behind these systems: how sensors, control panels, and monitoring networks interact reliably in situations where failure isn’t an option. By combining my interests in networking, electronics, and embedded systems, I enjoy exploring life safety technology as a complex, mission-critical communications ecosystem designed to safeguard people and property.
LA County Science Fair: Rooftop Fire Suppression Systems (2019)
Setup vintage addressable fire alarm control panel with coordinating computer software
Converted ADT legacy security system to cloud-based EyezOn system
Irrigation
I have a long-standing interest in irrigation systems and sprinkler controllers, particularly in how these systems combine electronics, sensors, and scheduling logic to manage water efficiently. I enjoy studying both modern and legacy controllers to understand how they tick, respond to environmental inputs, and communicate with other systems. Much of my learning comes from hands-on experimentation, repairing, configuring, and reverse engineering different controller designs. I’m especially interested in the intersection of irrigation technology with networking and embedded systems, where traditional landscape infrastructure is increasingly connected to smart controllers and remote monitoring platforms. Exploring how these systems evolve, from simple timer-based controllers to fully networked irrigation management, gives me insight into the broader world of automation and control systems.
Communications & Networking
Automatic Pool Cleaners
The 2009 Station Fire peaked my interest not only in Life Safety systems and Fire protection, it also stirred my interest in Robotic Pool Cleaners. The fire had come within several blocks of our home and even with professional pool cleaning, the amount of ash and debris in our pool was overwhelming. Our family purchased our first robotic pool cleaner to help clean the pool and my brother and I were hooked on pool cleaners from that point forward. It merged seamlessly with our interest in vacuums and later robotic vacuums.
Vacuums
I've had some strange reactions when I tell people I collect vacuum cleaners. How is it odd? They're fascinating! They seem mundane, but it turns out there are as many ways to make a vacuum as there are mouse traps. New and old, big and small, almost every one has its place. The number of times my brother and I have torn one apart and put it back together in a single evening is staggering. Cleaning them up and finding or fabricating replacement parts has taught me a lot about how astonishingly and frustratingly manufacturing tolerances need to be. Moving parts get really hot even if they're in a stream of cool air. Said moving parts are spinning at several hundred times a minute, and they all need sub millimeter precision to prevent vibration and premature wear. I really wanna know how they did it, even if I know already.
Vintage computing
The evolution and history of computers needs to be taught in schools. The many hours I've spent configuring and setting up my vintage PCs proves that there's no substitute for hands on kinesthetic learning. There's truly amazing stuff your devices can do that few people end up learning about and exploring like I have. Sending faxes through a PBX an receiving them as an email, bridging multiple eras of computers and getting them talking together, and watching a dot matrix hammering out log file may be mundane to you, but they constantly make me wonder why no one told me all these fascinating things before!? Old computers are FAR from perfect, but they did A LOT amazingly well. We got a lot to learn about them, the way they do things simply and efficiently.
Dumpster-Diving
One man's trash is another man's treasure, and I AM ANOTHER MAN! Almost all of my favorite things were found at a thrift store, a E Waste recycler, or literally inside of a large cardboard box on a pallet that I had to comically throw myself into to grab! The things people throw away make me sad, not because the things themselves are saddening, but because the thought that such useful and fascinating things go to waste is too much to bear. We built my brothers computer out of a mix of new parts and trash we were gifted. My school laptop I take everywhere with me was found in an aforementioned cardboard dumpster. Three quarters of our fire alarm collection, at least 250 devices, all came from the trash. I have put days, if not weeks of effort into cleaning an restoring nearly a thousand things over the years. I've learned a fine sense of force and finesse with my hands from it, something I'm very proud of.