Garrett Wilkens

I love finding the most efficient way to reach a goal. Through optimization, tasks require less time, less effort, and less money. With all these extra resources, more can be done to improve the quality of life of everyone. That's why I seek to find the best way to carry out a project, whether that be through analytical optimization or iterative design. My research on potassium nitrate-sorbitol propellant lead me to develop quicker methods of manufacturing the propellant grains needed for my experiment. As team lead of my thrust-vectoring capstone project, I created Gantt charts to keep us on schedule and reach deliverables. During my time on the rocketry team, I improved my rocket iteratively after each flight.