About Us

Meet the Crew!

Gary Benjamin(gjb56@drexel.edu)

Gary is an electrical engineering major at Drexel University and is enrolled in the five year, three co-op track. He hopes to use his knowledge of coding and logic design to help make a great animatronic dragon head. He took engineering classes all throughout high school and hopes to use the teamwork and leadership skills he acquired as well as the technical knowledge he learned to better the design. The experiences he had will help the overall flow of the project and allow him to help in the coding and building of the animatronic.

Katherine Comisac(kac548@drexel.edu)

     Katherine is a Freshman at Drexel University studying Architectural Engineering. Although having some background in design, for this design project she is excited to learn more about the skills involved in handling the aesthetics of a working animatronic. She hopes these skills will serve her well this summer as she completes her STAR Scholar project. In the future, she hopes to continue developing her AutoCAD skills and pursue a mechanical concentration for her major. She also hopes to apply for and complete the accelerated BS/MS program to earn her master’s in architectural engineering.

Arjun Iyengar(ai373@drexel.edu)

     Arjun is a computer engineering major at Drexel University in the 5 year 3 co-op track. He is additionally minoring in computer science. He has an extensive background in computer science, and hopes to utilize his skills for the coding aspect of this project. He is also looking to expand his engineering knowledge with involvement in the mechanical aspects of this design project. He is looking to apply his leadership and coding skills to benefit this project, while taking away mechanical engineering knowledge and teamwork experience.

Akash Thaker(ant73@drexel.edu)

    Akash is an electrical engineering major from South Jersey. He hopes to apply his knowledge of coding and electronics to effectively help his team create animatronic. He also hopes to use his leadership and management skills to properly guide the team as well as set up weekly milestones. He has experience in Arduino, having coded a sumobot algorithm for an IEEE competition this past term. He is very excited to create Mario in all his glory and greatness.

James Ralph(jrf69@drexel.edu)

    James is an electrical engineering major at Drexel University. He has worked on numerous electronics and robotics projects before and wants to apply his skills to the mechanical, electrical, and programming aspects of Project Mario. In the future, he wants to pursue a masters through the BS/MS program at Drexel University. 

  

Peter Looft(pal87@drexel.edu)

    Peter Looft is a mechanical engineering student at Drexel University in the 5 year 3 co-op program. He plans on minoring in virtual reality and immersive technologies as well as obtaining his masters in civil engineering at the same time.  Peter is also the current event coordinator of Drexel's Theme Park and Engineering Design group.  He hopes to apply his knowledge of mechanical engineering and what he has learned about animatronics from the Theme Park and Engineering Design group to the building of this animatronic.