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Will Galles

CprE 494

3/4/23

Cumulative Reflection
My time here at Iowa State has been one of the most enjoyable and productive four years

of my life. Over these four years I have learned numerous new things and met countless new

people. I have learned about how I fit into the world and what I want to do with the rest of my

life. My time here at Iowa State has given me many different experiences that have shaped me

and will continue to shape me into the future. I will give you a little look into the experiences

that have had the greatest impact on me during my time here.

One of the most fruitful experiences here at Iowa State would be taking the course ARCH

321 (History of the American City). This class opened my eyes to the socioeconomic issues that

plague different people across the country. It opened a world to me that I did not know coming

from a small rural background. It showed me the different struggles and issues that other people

face that I had not been privy to. It has given me the mission in my career to work to make the

world a better place for all people. I have learned to better emphasize with those that I do not

share commonalities with and how to learn from them. Overall, this experience is one that I will

cherish for the rest of my life.

One of the most dramatic experiences that I have had while at Iowa State was learning

through the Covid-19 pandemic. When we were first told that we would not becoming back to

campus after spring break in early 2020 it was a shock to be sure. The rest of the semester was

spent scrambling and everyone trying to convert everything to an online format. The following

year was spent with everyone better learning the online process and leveraging new tools in the
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process. It was this experience that showed me the value of becoming a lifelong learner. I have

watched the whole world learn how to transition work to virtual and how the best successors of

the process have been the ones that put in the extra effort to learn the new systems. This has

made me want to continue to learn even though my education career will be ending. I want to

stay ahead in the world and be able to leverage the new tools that are being introduced all the

time. Even though this has been one of the most traumatic experiences that I have had it gives

me the most hope for the future and what I will be able to accomplish.

Some of my favorite technical experiences come from the labs and project classes that I

have had the opportunity to take while here at Iowa State. My favorite project that I have worked

on thus far has been in my CPRE 488 (Embedded Systems Design) course. We were tasked with

designing a drone system that could autonomously fly without the use of internal sensors. I was

able to work in a group of four for this project where we began by breaking the whole system

down into separate components. We started by separating it into four major components and of

which I was responsible for the radio communication component. I then took time to break down

my component into smaller portions that I could work on and integrate to increase the

capabilities incrementally. Finally, after completing all the components, we began integrating

them all together into the final product. I appreciate the tools that we have been taught to be able

to formulate and design our own systems and to work as a team to put all of it together in the

end.

The experience at Iowa State that I owe the most to is my introduction to the clubs here at

Iowa State. Freshman year I joined the PrISUm Solar Car Club here at Iowa State and I have

been an active member since then. I have learned so much from technical skills to project

management skills to working within a team structure and it has been one of the most fun
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activities that I have taken part in my four years. Starting freshman year and learning from upper

classman at the time I learned a plethora of technical skills that were not covered in my courses

until a later data and not covered at all. This was a huge advantage in both my later classes and

my search for internships throughout my four years. I also learned how to go about designing

very large and technical projects as the solar car was a very complicated system. I learned the

design process for whole system level architecture down to single circuits and single lines of

code which will be a skill I will use for the rest of my career. Lastly the biggest take away from

solar car was how to work in a team and to get along with those you work with. The people that I

have worked with have become some of my best friends in the process and I have learned to

work with them at the highest levels of productivity. Overall, my time on PrISUm has shaped my

career here at Iowa State like no other.

One of the newest experiences that I have really enjoyed has been my senior design

project to cap off my education here at Iowa State. I have been able to work on a project that

utilizes materials and processes that are typically locked behind graduate school or highly

specialized roles in industry. The project is a Digital Application Specific Integrated Circuit

(Digital ASIC) that will be manufactured as part of the project. With this project I have had to do

a lot of learning about the process as none of my courses have covered anything like this. One of

the best resources has been my advisor Dr. Duwe who knows a tremendous about ASIC design

and has been a great resource in the whole process. Another great resource in this process has

been the open-source community. There have been dozens of people across the world that have

been willing to answer any questions that I have had about the process on the shared slack page.

It has been awesome to be able to interact with people who are experts in the domain and have

been working on these types of projects in industry for decades. Overall, this has been one of the
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experiences where I have learned the most and it will be a defining moment in my time here at

Iowa State.

All these experiences have shaped me into the person I am today. They have taught me

how to become a good engineer. They have taught me how to be productive and to work well

with others professionally. They have taught me how to be a good engineer for the benefit of all

and to make our world a better place. There is very little that I would change about the path that I

have taken. In the end my time here at Iowa State has changed me into the best form of myself.