Travel and Other Hobbies
Travel and Other Hobbies
Outside research and teaching, I enjoy exploring new places and working on practical, hands on projects. The themes below reflect that balance between travel and engineering.
I enjoy visiting new cities, walking historic districts, and exploring cultural destinations. Many of these trips are combined with conferences, invited talks, and research visits, which gives me a chance to connect technology, people, and place.
I enjoy working on cars because they give me a chance to combine mechanical problem-solving with embedded electronics and hands-on experimentation. What starts as a simple repair often turns into a full engineering project where I integrate Raspberry Pi, Arduino boards, and custom sensor modules into the vehicle. I use these systems to add real-time telemetry, diagnostic monitoring, environmental sensing, and small automation features that enhance both performance and functionality.
These projects give me more than a hobby. They provide a personal workshop where I can study how mechanical components, electrical systems, and embedded controllers influence one another in a real automotive environment. I get to explore the same ideas found in modern smart vehicles, but at a scale where I can design, install, test, and refine every part myself. This blend of hands-on mechanics and embedded engineering feels natural to me and reflects how I like to learn: by building, experimenting, and pushing systems to do just a little more than they were originally designed for.
Working on cars this way helps me strengthen both my technical intuition and my creativity. It’s a continuous learning process that keeps me connected to practical engineering, and it gives me an enjoyable space where mechanical work and modern technology meet.
