Expanding circuits

Brandon Petrie brings engineering into all areas of his life. On top of being an engineering technology and management student in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, Petrie is involved in youth outreach, student organizations, and creative personal projects. 

The opportunity to lead outreach sessions for local K-12 students fell into Petrie’s lap by chance. He was working as a student employee in the Russ College when a group of students came in for a tour. He led the tour and from there, his outreach expanded. Now a senior, Petrie estimates that he has connected with over 1,000 K-12 students from nearby communities. 

For Petrie, this outreach is more than just a job. As a Southeast Ohio local, he finds joy in giving students the opportunity to experience technology that they may not otherwise have access to. 

“These are things that I've never seen when I was younger,” he says. “So I'd like to get that  out there and show it to people, give them the opportunities that I never got when I was younger.”

During outreach sessions, Petrie shows students how to use a variety of technologies, including Niryo Ned 2 robots and 3D printing equipment. The robots allow Petrie to show students a simplified version of a manufacturing cell. The robots sort circle and square-shaped objects from one another while communicating through digital inputs and outputs. The 3D printing technologies allow students to experience manufacturing in a way that is fun and engaging for their age group. 

“3D printing is additive manufacturing at its bare bones,” Petrie says. “It's a neat way to show students how things are created, taking stuff from digital into the real world.”

He says students love this approach because they can design their own creations in online technology, including Minecraft, and then have it printed into a tangible item. Their excitement is Petrie’s favorite part of working with the students. 

“When I was younger, I would have just loved to see this and think, oh, this could be a future for me. Now, it actually is a future for them. The whole goal to me is to get them interested. The more questions they ask, that's even better because that just shows that they're interested and I want to help push them towards that future.”

Outside of his outreach projects, Petrie is currently the president of the OHIO chapter of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and one of the founders of the Student Digital Enterprise Collaboratory (SDEC), a new student organization establishing itself on campus this semester. 

The SDEC is designed to be a place for students to explore projects they are passionate about and access technology that they may not have at home. 

“We have a lot of cool technologies in there that I feel like a lot of people don't know about,” says Petrie. “So it will be really cool to get that organization going and then…to have the ability to reach .”

This club is open to all students and is an opportunity to think creatively. Although the SDEC is still being established, it already has 22 members. 

Despite being so involved in his academics and his outreach in the local community, Petrie still makes time for his own projects. One of his recent projects was 3D printing an acoustic guitar. The guitar was completely made of plastic except for the tuners, which he used screws for, and the strings. 

Petrie has started work on a 3D-printed electric guitar but hasn’t yet completed that one. Due to the electronic needs of this type of guitar, soldering will be required, which Petrie says he looks forward to experimenting with. 

In the way of a true engineer, Petrie also uses 3D printing to design solutions for small things in his daily life.

“I work on cars, so I go underneath them a bunch and right now I'm about to design and print out a thing to hold bolts and different things on my crawler when I go underneath the car, instead of dropping it on the ground and losing it 24/7,” says Petrie. “I can now just have an easy storage place to save me time and headaches.”

Where some may struggle to shop for a solution or simply give up and accept the inconvenience, Petrie takes matters into his own hands and creates it. This option, which sounds difficult, Petrie simply shrugs off as a casual activity in his day. 

As he nears the end of his undergraduate career, Petrie implores students to make connections on campus. 

“People are great to learn from,” he says. “They always have information. If you talk to them, you can learn from their failures [and] successes to save you a lot of headache and trouble in the future. So I would just say make connections, talk to people, even if it's just making friends.”