Written by AMA staff (04/2007); Transcribed by JS (02/2008), Reformatted by JS (09/2009)
Daniel Jang of Glendale, Wisconsin, received a $6,400 Charles Hampson Grant scholarship in addition to $1,750 from the Weak Signals RC Club. A graduate of Nicolet High School, Daniel was a National Merit Commended student and a National Advance Placement (AP) scholar by the end of his junior year in high school.
Daniel was born in the United States but lived in Korea from second through sixth grade before moving to Indiana. In the sixth grade, Daniel discovered RC flying.
“I have always been fascinated by flight and the engineering behind flying machines,” he wrote. “When I found out about the existence of radio controlled planes in the sixth grade after moving to the US from Korea, I jumped right into the hobby.”
He joined a local club and attended the meetings to learn about the hobby. “As a youngster who didn’t speak English too well, meeting a lot of older RC enthusiasts was daunting at first,” he wrote, “but they were very friendly and essential to my learning about the hobby.” With a mentor, Daniel built a Gentle Lady and learned to fly. He built a PT-Electric but his family moved and he was unable to fly the aircraft.
While researching AP help sites, Daniel found a Web site about aerial photography. The idea of combining a model airplane with a digital camera fascinated him.
“The reasons I love building and flying RC planes now extend themselves into the challenge of putting a camera, which had to be modified, into a relatively fragile plane. In order for this project to succeed, I had to isolate vibrations, lighten every item onboard, yet make the structure stronger, calculate the amount of current that different propellers used, solder electronics onto the camera, and tackle many more engineering challenges.”
The project succeeded and Daniel wrote, “Aerial photography with an RC plane gives me another angle to look at the world.”
In high school, Daniel was active in music, playing the clarinet since he was in fifth grade. He was section leader and drum major for the marching band and played in the Milwaukee Symphonic Youth Orchestra and the Solo/Ensemble contests in Indiana and Wisconsin. He was on the math team, participated in the Wisconsin Madison Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Talent Search, and placed ninth in the nation in Mathfax. He received a perfect score on the Mathematics Association of America exam.
Daniel participated in the Science Fair, the Salt of the School Club, the Academic Decathlon, the Ultimate Frisbee League, and was the founder and president of the Team America Rocketry Challenge team. He was on the tennis team and active in his church youth group including a mission trip to Costa Rica and spent a few hours a week tutoring students.
Daniel is attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an engineering major.
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