Nicolas

Building robots and mapping orbital trajectories

Learn how Caltech student Nicolas Jimenez-Lozano grew his passion for STEM through hands-on mechanical engineering courses and an aerospace engineering minor.

New York native Nicolas "Nico" Jimenez-Lozano ‘24 had two key criteria for considering colleges to attend: a small student body and a STEM focus. That's when he received an email about Caltech's Fall Fly-in Program, where high school seniors can visit the school and meet current students and faculty.

"Being all the way on the East Coast, I wasn't that familiar with Caltech," Nico admitted. "My college counselor at my high school knew that I was into STEM and heard about the program, so he forwarded me the email."

So Nico traveled across the country to explore Caltech's STEM focus and hands-on research opportunities. He learned firsthand about the school's 3-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio and that it had around 1,000 undergraduates.

"The trip let me test the waters of if I would be comfortable going that far to college, and it introduced me to Caltech in a way that was super memorable," he recalled. "Since that experience, I knew it was the place for me."

Exploring the Mechanical Engineering Major at Caltech

Growing up, Nico enjoyed science and math courses because he could find solutions to real-world problems.

"I was drawn to STEM because I always felt like there's a tangible impact on myself and the world around me," he said.

Caltech nurtured Nico's continuing interest in STEM applications. He gravitated toward the mechanical engineering major, where he could solve challenging problems through hands-on techniques.

"With every single mechanical engineering class I take, I'm adding a little something to my toolbox of things I can use in very specific and tangible ways," he said passionately. "When I took my first machine shop, every other week, I'd learn how to use a new machine, and that's another thing I can actually use to prototype and build other things."

Applying Mechanical Engineering Concepts and Skills

One of Nico's favorite mechanical engineering courses is Engineering Design Laboratory (ME 72). In this two-term course, Caltech students, also known as Techers, work in groups to create robotic devices capable of solving challenges or meeting specific goals.

For that year's project, Nico and his team built three robots:

• a mobile robot to collect racquetballs from a dispenser
• a stationary robot to shoot those balls into goals
• another mobile robot to traverse an obstacle course

At the end of the second term, the students in the course engaged in a competition—Battle of the Bots—to determine which robotic trio would emerge victorious.

"The whole campus was there, and there were even little kids from the local middle school that came to watch it," Nico said proudly. "And we won the competition, which was really fun."

Because of his great experience as a participant, Nico returned to the ME 72 Lab as a teaching assistant during his fourth year.

"This year's theme is blimps, and it's blimp quidditch, essentially," he said enthusiastically.

Humanities with a STEM focus

While Nico came to Caltech for science courses, he discovered an unexpected joy in his humanities courses, which Techers take as part of the core curriculum. He highlighted how Caltech tailors these courses to meet the needs of STEM thinkers and complement their future studies.

"I had taken a couple of philosophy classes in high school, so I was prepped for philosophical discussions and essays on open-ended questions," he recalled. "But then we spent the majority of the first few weeks learning about how to define a fact, which is much more like a computer science topic in the sense that you're learning about AND and OR logic gates and ‘If this is true, this is true, and this is true, what can we say about that?'"

Nico also enrolled in an investing course to satisfy his advanced social science requirement. It offered practical knowledge and experience rather than theory alone, aligning with his academic preferences.

"We were given $10,000 of fake money every week, and we invested it, and if we beat the S&P 500 by the end of term, we got three points of extra credit," he explained. "So it gives us practical skills that's useful."

Planning for the Future with Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Recently, Nico added an aerospace minor to explore his interest in space and space travel further. As a Techer, he benefits from the school's partnership with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which include access to research projects and courses taught by JPL scientists.

For example, the instructor in Nico's orbital mechanics class was a former head of JPL, and he ensured that their final reports met official standards.

"After we learned all the physics that goes into it, we got to plan a proposal for a mission to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons," he recalled. "One of the fun test cases that I did to prove that my algorithm worked was recreating the Cassini spacecraft trajectory, and I was able to match it almost perfectly."

Studying mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering at Caltech has opened doors for Nico, who plans to graduate this year.

"I'm actually graduating a term early, so I'll be done in early March," he said. "I'm going to immediately jump into an internship with SpaceX in the spring term, working on the propulsion team."

After that, the sky's the limit for Nico.

"I want to take the summer off, but I plan on going into the industry after I graduate," he said. "I'm also considering getting my master's and doing it concurrently while I'm working. We'll see."