THIS WEEK'S PERSONALITY: Robotics vet earns engineering degree

Jim Brewer, Ashland Times Gazette
·4 min read
This month Jacob Baumberger, son of Paul and Amy Baumberger of rural Perrysville, became the first member of the touted LHS robotics program to earn, four years later, a degree in engineering.
This month Jacob Baumberger, son of Paul and Amy Baumberger of rural Perrysville, became the first member of the touted LHS robotics program to earn, four years later, a degree in engineering.

LOUDONVILLE - Five years ago, Jacob Baumberger was a regular on the surprisingly successful new Loudonville High School robotics team.

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This month he became the first Redbird robotics regular to earn a degree in engineering.

Baumberger, son of Paul and Amy Baumberger of rural Perrysville, earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at Ohio State, and will begin work next month involved in the gearbox design program for GE Aviation in Cincinnati.

“Robotics, back in high school, got me involved in engineering applications, making me passionate about working on design,” he said. “The engineering principles we used in robotics prepared me for college, and confirmed to me that design work was what I wanted to do.”

Baumberger worked his way through the four-year mechanical engineering program in 4 1/2 years, taking a semester off to work in an internship program. Actually, he completed two internships while a student, one at Honda’s transmission plant in Russells Point, Ohio, and the second at Hobart Aluminum in Traverse City, Michigan.

Ohio State classes

At Ohio State, he said he began with several principles of engineering classes, along with classes in chemistry, physics, math, including calculus and college algebra, materials science and classes on CAD modeling and other engineering software. Then he got into his mechanical engineering classes.

“I loved my specific engineering classes, where we would work on design projects, often teaming up with other students to work as a group,” he said. “That was a valuable experience, because I learned to work with each other’s strengths in a group to get the best results. There is a great deal of difference between independent work and team work, and I found I like to work with other people, something I did back in high school on the robotics team.

“Finally, maybe my greatest challenge was to be given a problem without any knowledge of how to solve it,” he said. “We learned on the fly, and that was a valuable experience.”

Baumberger graduated cum laude at Ohio State, earning a 3.7 grade point average.

An important factor in his academic success, he said, “were the students I roomed with. I stayed with the same three other guys from my freshman year on. We were put in the same room in a special engineering dorm, the top floor of Houck House, our freshman year.

Two of his roommates graduated as welding engineers and are now working on Navy contracts

“I found myself surrounded by like-minded people, friends who had the same goals and liked to study to achieve them, and who also had a good time,” he said. “We roomed together for four years. Two of my roommates have graduated, both welding engineers now working on Navy contracts. I am a mechanical engineer, and the fourth roommate, now off on an internship, is a computer science major who already has a job lined up in Washington, D.C.”

Asked if he had any advice for students contemplating studying engineering, he stressed “be sure you care about and enjoy whatever you are studying. Being enrolled in a program that doesn’t fit can be drudgery, and I have seen students who realized they were in the wrong program, changed majors and their grades immediately soared. Also, don’t be shy about asking for help. The university has many resources to help students, and you should make the most of them.”

School was enjoyable to Baumberger, the academic side and the associations he made.

“In my free time, I enjoyed sports, including weight lifting and body building, as well as playing flag football every Sunday morning, and basketball whenever I could, outdoors when it was nice and indoors the rest of the time.”

Plans to spend some of the holidays looking for a place to live in Cincinnati

Home now for the holidays, he plans to spend some of his time off finding a place to live in Cincinnati and preparing for his new, and exciting, job.

Baumberger has two younger brothers, both also LHS robotics team members. Logan is a sophomore computer science major at Miami of Ohio University, and Matthew a senior at LHS who, “I think, will follow me as a mechanical engineering major at Ohio State,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: THIS WEEK'S PERSONALITY: Robotics vet earns engineering degree