EVERETT — Julia Loewen, 17, is a senior at Cascade High School in Everett. The daughter of Elona and Jim Loewen, she also is on the school’s robotics team.
Question: How did you get interested in robotics?
Answer: My freshman year I heard about it from a friend and I came to a meeting and it went from there. I started spending a lot of time in robotics and I found out I really loved it.
Q: What about it do you like?
A: I love everything. Most of my friends are in robotics. I love going to the competitions and working really hard on all the projects we have. It’s really rewarding to see our work pay off.
Q: You’ve won some awards for that, right?
A: I went to the FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) World Championship in St. Louis … It’s a big robot and you have six weeks to work on it. I was nominated for the Dean’s List award. That’s named after Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). The award is for leadership, and I’ve been team captain for four years now.
Q: What is your role on the team? Design? Production?
A: I’ve done everything, but I mostly do behind-the-scenes stuff, like I organize fundraisers. I’ve written essays for grants for the team, and I make sure the team is on task.
Q: They say you’re also a good student?
A: I have a not-quite-flawless GPA. It’s 3.95. I actually got an A-minus in Spanish my freshman year, and now I’m in AP Spanish. I’m really good at math and science. Those are my favorites. I took AP Biology last year and that’s been my favorite class.
Q: And you’re in band?
A: I play bassoon for the wind ensemble. I’ve been playing that since the seventh grade. I also play alto sax, but I don’t play that as much, mostly in the pep band.
Q: Any other clubs or activities?
A: I do marching band. I’m in the color guard and I have a bassoon solo this year.
Q: What’s your favorite book?
A: I really like “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess, and I liked “Ender’s Game” a lot.
Q: What are your hobbies outside of school? If you even have time for hobbies …
A: I really don’t. I study. I have my activities and then I go home and study, and that’s about it. I work a couple of days a week. I work at Old Navy.
Q: Have you thought about college?
A: Yes. Right now, I’m working on my MIT and Caltech applications.
Q: Those are your top choices?
A: Yes. I want to study aerospace engineering and get a job in space exploration.
Q: What aspect of space exploration are you interested in?
A: I like that there are so many challenges in space exploration. Once you solve one problem, you find another problem, because people are made to live on Earth, not another planet, like Mars. I want to try to solve or figure out some of those problems.
Q: What do your folks do?
A: My dad is an engineer, and my mom is a middle-school math teacher.
Q: Do you have a mentor at the high school?
A: (Linda) Anderson and (Neil) Palachuk. They’ve been my robotics mentors since freshman year and they’ve taught me and everyone else on the team everything from building the robot to writing essays to presenting.
Q: What’s your favorite part of the whole process of building the robot?
A: The competition and seeing our robot on the field and seeing our final product, either doing what it’s supposed to do or completely failing at what it’s supposed to do, is really cool. We also get to present to the judges about our team and our whole season.
Q: Do you have any goals for senior year?
A: I want to have a really good robotics season because it’s my last year. I also want to make it to state at the solo ensemble competition for bassoon.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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