Abstract
Technical Capstone Project
I am participating in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Student Design
Competition. This year, our six group members are to design, build, and test a remote-controlled
waste collection and sorting device that can navigate various terrains, pick up dumpsters, sort
their contents into garbage and recycling units, and deposit those units into relevant dumpsites.
The device must navigate hills, potholes, turns, and differing floor materials like carpet and
hardwood in a model city while following traffic laws. Our device will be approximately 4” wide
by 9” long by 6” tall. If teams pass an initial individual testing stage, they are invited to compete
in a 16-seed bracket tournament against teams from other universities. Teams are judged
individually and in a tournament by engineering quality, the time it takes to pick up, sort, and
deposit units, how much garbage is spilled, and how traffic laws are followed. Our team is
comprised of four sub-teams: drivetrain, grabbing, sorting, and dispensing. The drivetrain team
oversees sourcing and organizing the hardware necessary to drive the vehicle. This includes the
microcontroller, motor drivers, motors, wheels, and remote control. The grabbing team oversees
how the user and vehicle can acquire dumpsters off the ground in various situations and dump
their contents into the sorting mechanism. The sorting team is developing how the vehicle will
autonomously sort the different colored recycling and garbage blocks into different bins. Finally,
the dispensing team is developing how those sorted blocks will be dumped into their relevant
dumpsites. Across the country, trash collection and sorting is a complex and expensive logistical
and technological challenge that is vital for keeping our communities clean without disrupting
traffic. Broadly, this robotics and design competition encourages students to explore ways to
enhance an industry that is incredibly important but often overlooked.
STS Topic
My STS Thesis attempts to answer the question: why are Silicon Valley tech workers leaving
Christianity? Fundamentally, my answer is an expansion on Carolyn Chen’s Work Pray Code.
Chen observes that modern Silicon Valley tech workplaces are spiritually fulfilling their
employees to the point that they are leaving organized religion. It is true that high-volume work
schedules leave little time for church, but time is not the only way that tech companies control
their employees’ lives. Chen explains how Big Tech hijacks religion in three main ways: work
becomes people’s source of meaning, the influx of “corporate maternalism,” and the
secularization of other religions. Along with these factors explain in my thesis, the omnipresence
of the workplace, charismatic leaders, and lofty missions also work to spiritually lure Christians
away from their religious beliefs by offering a spiritually fulfilling alternative in work. As
extrapolated from Wendell Berry’s collection of essays, What are People for, the Christian is
alarmed by this religious shift in Silicon Valley because of the Valley’s adoption of
consequentialism. Consequentialism as a philosophical framework is structurally incompatible
with Christian thought because consequentialism requires its users to place people in the abstract,
forgoing people’s individual identities for a simplified, generalized model for certain types of
people in general. To Christians, real love requires deeply knowing someone, so abstraction is
therefore the enemy of love. Silicon Valley’s political leverage, economic impact, and social
influence are something to be weary of because their philosophies inevitably permeate the
mainstream. Asking why Christians leave their religion as they work in Big Tech illuminates the
deeper assumptions of Tech Culture that can affect the world.
