Bio

Ryan Tsukamoto is a third-year mechanical engineering student at UC Santa Barbara who is interested in robotics, electromechanical devices, and fluid mechanics. Ryan enjoys these and other areas of engineering that allow him to come up with clever designs and creative solutions to solve tricky engineering problems. In between studying and class, Ryan enjoys playing soccer, tennis, and spikeball. 

Ryan was born and raised in San Jose, California where he grew up playing with Legos, fixing things and taking stuff apart for fun. Ryan has always been fascinated by high tech gadgets and interesting inventions ever since growing up watching superhero cartoons and secret agent spy movies. His goal as a mechanical engineer is to bring to life cool creations of his own to solve real world problems. 

Through Capstone, Ryan has had the opportunity to explore these passions on a new level by helping construct the haptic feedback digit-tracking Gestur glove. His work on the glove has expanded his knowledge on various types of electromechanical components, in particular, strain sensors, vibration motors, and accelerometers. Coming up with a way to implement each of these components into a working virtual reality glove has given Ryan invaluable experience with product design and prototyping. 

This project has given Ryan experience working in a team where communication has been crucial. It has also given him a taste of what it might be like to be assigned a project when working for a company. He will take everything he learned from this experience to his future projects and career.