Ups and downs: A junior’s passion for building

Last summer, out of boredom, junior Alan Lu and two other friends from nearby schools decided to build a backyard roller coaster.

Lu and his friends designed the basic framework by mapping the structure out, and built it through trial and error. In four weeks, they completed 70 percent of the intended result, finally stopping after realizing the rollercoaster wasn’t working out the the way they had intended.

“We tried to ride [the roller coaster], but it was too dangerous, so we just kind of stopped,” Lu said.

The unfinished structure now stands in the drying grass of Lu’s backyard, an incomplete roller coaster made of PVC pipes and sawed wood. At 3.5 meters tall, 2.5 meters wide and 10 meters long, it looks small next to the towering Redwood trees, hidden completely within his house’s backyard fence.

The roller coaster is just one example of Lu’s enthusiasm for building projects, both big and small, that he has created in the past seven years. An aspiring engineer in automotive design, he enjoyed building objects like Lego constructions, first by following manuals, and later through designing his own projects. His parents, who recognized his talents, encouraged him to pursue his interests further, driving him around and buying him supplies.

At age 10, Lu was introduced to a Lego robot called Mindstorm, which was when he first learned to build original projects without instructions. Although he didn’t particularly like the coding involved in the process of making this robot, Lu loved working with mechanics, eventually opening up a two-week summer camp to teach other kids how to code and build a Mindstorm robot.

As time passed and more opportunities arose, Lu found great enjoyment in engineering these projects and started tackling grander designs.

Some of Lu’s first works include building a bird trap, cotton candy machine and potato gun.

“For most of the projects I did, I just had random inspirations and decided to make [them], like the roller coaster,” Lu said.

Other times, he created projects out of necessity. For instance, Lu’s idea of an electric skateboard came to him when he was walking home from a friend’s house near the end of his freshman year. The distance was a couple miles too far for Lu’s liking, and he didn’t want to carry around a bike because it was too big.

Instead, Lu decided to craft a motor-powered skateboard with electric parts bought online.

Whenever he found time, Lu spent a few hours per week building the skateboard in a makeshift workshop in his garage, complete with saws, drills and other machinery. By the end of the month, Lu had finished his electric skateboard, even including a foldable feature so that it could easily fit into his backpack.

“The satisfaction that whatever I made worked made me extremely happy,” Lu said.

Later, during his sophomore year, Lu also experimented with lighting alcohol, using it as propulsion power.

By taking empty plastic containers and filling them with enough alcohol such that alcohol vapor, which ignites in the presence of heat, fills the entire bottle, Lu would then light the vapor.

“I realized that hot air will explode out from the nozzle, so I put a straw in there and plugged in a [foil ball],” Lu said, grinning. “Basically, I made a gun.”

Lu made most of these projects during his freshman and sophomore year, but as junior year grows increasingly busy, Lu does not plan to continue this long-time hobby, at least throughout this school year.

“Right now, my projects are just for personal entertainment,” Lu said. “But in the future, because I want to be an engineer, I can create bigger projects that can help the community.”