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Everything
we have and do today we owe to those who worked before us. We may not live
in a perfect world but few would argue that things today aren't any better
than they were before. And similarly, I believe that we owe to our antecessors
to take their work even further, and make the world we live in even better,
through scientific progress. The idea of progress -in whatever aspect of
science I happen to work in- is what I want to base my life's works on.
My father started off as a cashier at a bank, and over several years worked
his way up to becoming the Director of that bank. Once I congratulated him
and said that I too hoped some day to achieve the kind of success he had
in his professional life. He told me I could not hope for that, because
when he began working he started at the bottom working to pay his way through
school; when I started my career I did so already much further than he started,
and as such I have to accomplish much more than he did. And I will. I owe
it to everyone who has created the scientific ideas and knowledge which
allows me to do the things I do. I owe it to my parents, and, most important
of all, I owe it to myself.
And not a day goes by that I don't
think about that.
I was born on February 13th 1982 in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. Both
my parents worked for the national bank of Brazil and I spent the first
12 years of my life living in Brasilia, going to a couple different private
schools and performing my first experiments ever, mostly in the areas of
chemistry and electricity. As a child, and even today, I have always been
extremely curious; when I was 3 years old I somehow I managed to get shocked
by an electrical outlet and nearly got myself killed... At age 7, I stuck
a bent piece of wire into an electric socket and watched in bewilderment
as the wire instantly exploded and blackened the wall (and my fingers) around
it... I have always been fascinated with electricity, but I think it was
at that moment that I started really admiring it. This admiration
continues to this day and I am able to spend a night awake just watching
a thunderstorm, or spend hours staring at a plasma display... By that age
I was also taking apart anything I could get my hands on: toys, electric
showers, home appliances, etc... I was fascinated by how everything worked
and tried to understand each mechanism involved... I rarely managed to put
them back together, instead, I kept their parts for later use... Around
that time I started making my own devices too... By age 8 I was already
experimenting with electromagnets and electric motors, building simple devices
such as doorbell ringers and fans...
Taking another leap in time I go to the time when I was 11 years old...
By then I had obtained my first chemistry set and had started venturing
in the realms of chemistry... I had also recently started experimenting
more seriously with electricity and electric circuits, etching my own printed
circuit boards and building simple electronic devices from plans I found
in electronic magazines (which I had been reading for quite some time).
It was then that I built my first real high
voltage device: An ignition coil driver... Despite only running at 30
watts, it was a pulsed power system, so it could deliver 30Kilovolt pulses
of equal energy level to a small stun gun... Of course, it was only a matter
of time before I (then inexperienced with high voltage) got myself shocked
with it... By that time I was using it to do silly things, like burning
insects or lighting fluorescent lamps from a distance, and some of the shocks
I received were severe enough to throw me across the room... At one time
I was demonstrating the potential lightning could have to power cities with
electricity at a science fair: I had a 1-meter squared model of a small
city, with houses, lamp posts, and lights everywhere. Over the city there
was a cotton cloud with a H.V. wire inside it, to produce the discharge
that struck the lightning rod and lit all the lamps in the city.. The cloud
was made of cotton, and, sure enough, it caught fire... Unbeknownst to me
at the time, fire is an excellent conductor of high voltage electricity,
so, when I attempted to put it out, an electric spark leaped to my hand
and, by reflex, I jumped back. The people at the science fair got to watch
me get shocked, hit my head on the wall, and have my project burn down.
I did rebuild the project, and won the science fair, but more importantly
I learned a lesson about safety that I remember vividly to this day.
I was afraid of high voltage for a while after that, but it didn't stop
me from experimenting: It simply made me more cautious, and, since that
one shock I have rarely ever had any incidents, let alone accidents working
with electricity and high voltage.
That
project was one of many I have entered into science fairs since I was 9
years old. At that age I started competing (and winning) on every single
science fair I could enter. I saw it as a chance to express myself and meet
people interested on my projects, and my parents saw my success as a reason
to encourage me and fund my increasingly complex projects. At age 13 my
family moved to Holland, and I transferred to the European School of Bergen,
in Holland (the place where I learned English, French, Spanish, and some
Dutch to complement the Portuguese I already spoke at home, as well as from
where had a chance to live in France for some time, and travel almost all
of Europe with my parents). From there I continued participating their local
science fairs and when I won my second local prize with a pneumatic motor
project the school decided to enter me for a Dutch science fair (The Petten
Prize). I came first in both years I participated it (one time I came first
AND second place with two projects). From there I was given the chance to
participate in an European Science fair, the Regional JSHS (Junior Science
and Humanities Symposia) in Munich 1998. To my surprise, I came first (laureate)
and was automatically entered into two other science fairs: The International
JSHS, competing with the first place of every state in the US, plus Europe,
where I came third (after having to type my entire presentation on the flight
on the way to Phoenix because I lost the original), and the TMR's Young
Scientist Of The Year contest (in Porto, Portugal, for both Highschool students
and college undergraduates), where, although I didn't make it into the top
3, I still did very well overall. My stand was the busiest one in the whole
conventions center (look at the picture below to see why! The smoke is liquid
nitrogen, there used to power my prototype engine).
I was also invited to Intel's International Science fair (the largest one
of it's kind in the world), but it happened at the time I was changing schools
to get into the International Baccalaureate program, and I wasn't able to
go (my other school wasn't affiliated to these fairs).
As my knowledge and skills continued to grow fed by my constant reading
of any scientific book or science related magazine I could lay my hands
on, and by my constant experimenting which brought new ideas and questions
for me to research upon, my experiments began to grow in magnitude. Then
(as now), funding became a real problem as I would often have several projects
running in parallel and work on them as money and parts became available.
One of those projects in 1998 was high efficiency rocket research. It started
off with model rockets, and then went onto homebuilt rocket motors. First
a small hybrid prototype (bench top, nitrous oxide/rubber), than a larger
butane/propane/nitrous oxide engine which produced several mach diamonds
on its exhaust and was loud enough to have the windows in the garage shake
while it was running over the bench. Then, realizing that my resources would
not allow liquid or hybrid engines to be produced light enough for fly,
I started experimenting with solid fuelled rocket engines. First sugar/potassium
nitrate, than perchlorates, metal powders, nitrocellulose, double base powders,
and so on. These extremely small prototypes (usually built around 1cm diameter
brass tubes) produced incredible thrust for their size, and with ever increasing
performance, I started looking into military rocket patents. It was working
with one such high performance missile fuel containing a high explosive
combustion rate accelerant, that I suffered my first and last accident whilst
working in the lab. An extremely small amount of fuel detonated during testing
phase and cost me my first hospital visit, complete with overnight
stay, micro surgery, some nice scars on my hand and a ride to the police
station. I was very fortunate not to have lost sight or any limbs and became
extremely careful after that, discarding experiments that were too dangerous
(I now see that in my younger years I did not make that distinction, and
was very fortunate not to have had another, perhaps much more serious accident).
Nowadays I am a Research Engineer working for a small company in the field
of alternative fuels. I guess I still haven't quite figured out what I want
to do with my carrer: I love alternative fuels, but I also loved working
in Special Effects, loved working for Television, and would love to work
on electromagnetic propulsion. Still, I have been able to accomplish a lot
of what I wanted to do with my own funds and on my own spare time, so the
concern of landing a job that best matches my current interests at the time,
whatever those may be, has become somewhat secondary to having a job that
provides me with the income I need to fund those projects... For now I can
at least say that I am very proud of what I have done so far... There may
have been mistakes and incidents, but it was fun, exciting and rewarding,
and had I been given the chance, I would do it all again!
On a more personal note, I have also done five years of Karate, 4 years
of Judo, 1 year of Gymnastics. I thoroughly enjoy martial arts for the discipline
and focus they give to the body and mind. I was going to get my purple belt
by the time I left to Holland, but there I had to stop my lessons and only
resumed them recently. I am a big fan of extreme sports, doing mountain
biking over summer, snowboarding / skiing in winter and just about anything
else when I get the chance (water ski, jet skis, snowmobiles, motorbikes,
go karts, etc). I'm not big on team sports, but I do enjoy Volleyball and
frisbee. I am outgoing and love a good party (I was known on a name basis
on several dance clubs in Sao Paulo), but tend sometimes to speak in scientific
terms and with a certain indifference which makes many people think of me
as being arrogant, which is obviously not true. I do have a big ego though,
probably because throughout my life people have been praising me so much
for my skills and accomplishments that I took their word for it. I don't
however let it make me overconfident so that it doesn't hurt my work; when
it comes to my devices, I am usually pessimistic, as the pessimist is never
disappointed!
I currently live in New Jersey, USA, and can be seen driving my supercharged
black Corvette back and forth to work every day, usually over the speed
limit :) I can always be reached through my e-mail address:
sam@power-labs.com .
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 2004: Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee Power Station - Systems
Engineer Co-Op
My
first job ever was a Co-Op (a paid internship related to my field of
study) at a Nuclear Power Station. It was fascinating to learn about
nuclear power, and to have full access to virtually all areas of the
powerplant. My job tasks included in-field measurements such as ultrasonic
pipe wall thickness for evaluation of microbial induced corrosion (MIC)
and ultrasonic flow measurements for pump performance metering, data
trending, access programming and related engineering tasks. One of the
highlights is pictured on the left: I entered the reactor drywell as
part of a team involved in repairing one of the water recirculation
pump seals.
 2005 - 2007 (Part time) and 2007 - 2008 (Full Time): KVA
Effects - Special Effects Engineer
My
second job was as a Special Effects Engineer: KVA is the only company
in the world with the experience -and isurance- to perform high voltage
special effects, and as their only full-time Engineer at the time I
worked tasks as varied as sales, installation, operation and maintenance
of various High Voltage equipment for special effects in movies, theater
and shows in the
US
and abroad. Some highlights below:
Summer
2005: Universal Studios
Hollywood:
Produced documentation and worked as technical assistant in the installation
and tuning of a 2MV Tesla Coil by KVA Effects in the attraction Fear Factor
Live. This attraction ran for several years, won numerous awards, and was
one of the most popular ones at Universal Studios. It was also the first
and only UL-Certified Tesla Coil installation in the world at the time!
Summer
2006 Mercedes Benz / KVA Effects:
Assisted in the preparations, installation, grounding, testing and electromagnetic
iterference troubleshooting for the electrical stunt for the unveiling of
the new E-Class at the 2006
New York International Auto
Show (NYIAS).
Some of the highlights on this show included the
fact that it was the first time we really had the opportunity to study the
Electromagnetic Interference caused by Tesla Coils on sensitive equipment
such as intelligent lighting. We made some very interesting discoveries
partaining to how the interference was caused and how it could me minimised.
The show itself was also spectacular.
 2007:
Hero Honda (Agra, India): This was my first experience working abroad. Working
in India was... Difficult. The incompetence and lack of organization of
the support crew there made everything 10 times harder than it had to be.
Holes were dug by hand, trusses were put up with bamboo, welding was done
bare handed and with no eye protection and the one thing we absolutely needed:
a 60Hz power generator, was nowhere to be found.
We came through
and managed to pull off the stunt with minutes to spare after I found a
way to get a 50Hz generator to run at 60Hz, but it was rough. Highlights
included seeing the Taj Mahal, and then leaving India at the end of the
show ;)
 2008:
Andy Lau Wonderful World Concert:
Probably the most incredible work I have ever been involved in. I
flew to Hong Kong and met with Singer/Actor/Performer Andy Lau and his
production team and devised the stunt seen pictured on the left: a
one-of-a-kind, never before seen high voltage stunt where Andy received
a 20foot long, 7 million volt electric arc from a massive tesla coil and
then sent it out to 3 other performers dancing around him. This was a
part of the "Worlderful World" concert tour and sold out 50,000 seats
for 18 days. After designing the stunt, installing it along with another
KVA technician, tuning the Tesla Coil, running the ground and testing
everything, I personally tried out Andy's costume and one of the
performers' costumes to make sure it was safe.
I will never
forget what it was like seeing the crowd's reaction every time the
lightning bolt hit the stage. This was a perfect ending to my work at
KVA. I quit a few months later having received a more lucrative job
offer in the energy field:
 2008 - Present: Nostrum Energy - Research Engineer / Project
Manager:
My
current job title is "Project Manager", although my actual function is
that of a
Research Engineer as I am responsible for designing and performing experiments,
gathering data and developing alternative fuels and power generation
technology based on novel experimental designs being developed in an
international team environment. Also involved in patenting various
technologies alongside a team of attorneys.
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