Hackster Ambassador Spotlight: Kevin Le

Kevin Le runs the Banana Slug Hacksters meetup at University of California Santa Cruz. He’s a sophomore at UCSC and already has quite an impressive resume. What he’s most passionate about is using his technology skills to help others.

I currently hack in my academic life. I hope to go professional soon! In academia, I work on VR and robotics at Danser & Interactive Systems for Individuals with Special Needs Lab. I helped a few PHD students with their projects regarding tensegrity joints by building models. For VR, I’m creating 3D environments with the Oculus Rift and CAVE system in order to better study disabled patients.

My first hack was a personal project where I tried to build an Arduino-powered robot car. Seeing it move using an Arduino program just blew my mind. It showed me how you can manipulate anything using software.

The tech! I love the tech and the workshops you’re able to host. Hackster definitely gives us a lot more flexibility and “power” when it comes to being an ambassador. We also get a lot of hardware to host workshops.

I usually post on UCSC student groups on Facebook telling them about an upcoming workshop. We hold them in conference rooms or lecture halls. Many engineering students come to our workshops as I try to publicize these events as much as I can. Sometimes we’ll get a business or biology student here and there. We primarily eat pizza from Dominos. We work on all kinds of projects such as making VR applications using the Oculus Rift. There are a wealth of projects on Hackster that we can work on using the hardware available to us.

Yes, someone built an HVAC system using Edison that could be used for heating and cooling and had an LCD display.

I want everyone to gain more awareness of Hackster’s platform and how they can earn swag in return for working on their favorite projects.

Monica and Kevin ended the interview by having a discussion about hacking for social good. You can listen to their discussion below!