HUAAN ZHANG

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Huaan Zhang is brilliant.  He has degrees in optical and in electrical engineering.  He's designed control systems for the engines of giant tractors and magnetic read heads to gather teensy bits of data.  He's helped increase the storage capacity of disc drives by four orders of magnitude, from hundreds of megabytes up to a few terabytes.  Huaan well deserves the highest praise you can give an engineer:  his stuff really works!

Amy and Huaan Zhang work on
the robot control tower

So what does he do for fun?   Well, for one thing, he builds robots for The Works.  The first two robots he made were instant, enormous hits in the museum.  Huaan and his daughter Amy spent many Saturdays at The Works helping enthralled kids test drive the machines.  With an engineer's eye for improvement, Huaan sstreamlined the robot, created a durable control tower, added in foam blocks for a maneuvering challenge and redesigned the claw.  Fellow engineers from Seagate constructed a large, purple pen to house the robots.  Amy named the machines "Zucchini" and "Pickle" and they remain a popular highlight for our young visitors.

Huaan and Amy also coach a team of kids at The Works in the First Leo League robotics competition.  This year's team, the NXT Generation, met weekly for four months to design, build and program a Lego robot and to research a presentation of global warming.  With the kids' hard work and Huaan's patient and encouraging direction, the team advanced to the State competition, where they placed in the top ten in Robot Design, Performance, Programming, Teamwork and Research.

Huaan's efforts and expertise have given thousands of young people a personal, hands-on experience with robotics.

"This is so important," he says, with a quiet smile lighting his face.  "I just want kids to have a chance to experience and appreciate engineering."   Thanks to you Huaan Zhang, they do.

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