 In the VIP MEP GoCart course, we design, build and test GoCarts for the Purdue Grand Prix competition. I wanted to participate in the VIP MEP GoCart course to be able to be part of a larger team and to be able to have some hands-on experiences with actual tools and components that will apply in industry. So I thought that the GoCart was a perfect opportunity for me to not only have some leadership skills but also hone in on the mechanical skills that I wanted. I chose to participate in the VIP MEP GoCart course because I participated in the Engineering Academic Bootcamp put on by MEP. And in this bootcamp, I met the most amazing, like-minded people that became my family. I loved working with them and collaborating with them. And I found that participating in this VIP course, I would continue to work with them and collaborate with them. The things I'm learning from this VIP course have been more team-focused than necessarily car-focused. I've learned a lot about open-mindedness, how to work better with my teammates. Team and project management, and more specifically to the actual course, we're learning about race strategy and specifically to my sub-team, we're learning about different electrical components that can be used to check telemetry for GoCarts and to be able to gather data from runs from the GoCart. I think one of the most valuable things that we've really learned in this course is leadership and what it means to be a leader, especially taking accountability for specific aspects of the GoCart. Build lead, quality lead, team lead. They all have different roles, different responsibilities. My biggest goals for this VIP course are safety and engineering and skills that save lives, financial management of an engineering project, engineering diagnostics, machine design and assembly, and that this type of engineering is for all people. One of my hopes for the team is to improve even more the efficiency of our workflow and to become even better at evaluating our progress and see what needs to be adjusted so that we can be more productive. Some of the goals for the course are to be able to have a more advanced GoCart that can be competitive in the Purdue Grand Prix for next year and for our specific sub-team, we want to be able to gather and collect telemetry data and also footage data that we can analyze to improve our driving skills and our car. My goals for the team and for the cart would be more so to participate in the Grand Prix and I'm competitive so I'd like to win things. I'd like more people to learn about the mechanics of GoCarting. I feel like they transition really well to engineering. I kind of want to develop my teamwork skills and try to understand other people's ideas and implement it in our project more. One of my favorite things about this project is being able to participate in being part of a team to accomplish a goal with some of my closest friends. The best thing about this course so far was the camaraderie I've been able to build between my teammates, not necessarily just educationally but also just as friends and as people. One of the best things about this course is the mentoring and the guidance that we received. I would personally recommend this course to future students because of the variety of things you can do within the course that would also allow you to get more experience in engineering. This will be an opportunity for hands-on experience that you can get in your other first engineering classes or future engineering classes so definitely take advantage of all the skills you develop because it will help you in the long run. I would definitely recommend that other students take this course most especially because hands-on experience is so important and often lacking when you're actually applying in industry. This course is not just theoretical. It's not just doing math problems. It's a real hands-on experience where you can design, build, and drive even a go-kart which is so cool. We as engineers, we just want to build and this course allows you to do that and not only build it but drive it in the Grand Prix track which is amazing, amazing.