JOHN & SAHIL'S Physics Journal

ENGINEERING & BUILDING

Engineering is probably the most obvious thing I keep coming back to. I like taking something that exists only as an idea and trying to make it work in the real world. There is something satisfying about designing a system, realizing that your first version is probably wrong, figuring out why it is wrong, and then rebuilding it until it works. A lot of what I enjoy comes from that process of constantly finding small problems and solving them. I don't just like knowing how something works; I like having to make it work myself.

CARS & ELECTRIC VEHICLES

I have always been interested in cars, but especially in the engineering decisions behind them. I like thinking about why a car is designed a certain way, how performance and efficiency trade off against each other, and how electric vehicles change those decisions. Building endurance race cars made that interest much more real for me because suddenly things like weight, energy usage, reliability, aerodynamics, and mechanical efficiency stopped being abstract ideas. They became problems where a small design decision could determine whether the car actually finished.

ROBOTICS

Robotics is another area I keep returning to because it combines so many different ways of thinking. A robot has to exist physically, so an idea that looks perfect on a screen can still fail completely once you build it. I enjoy the mechanical side of solving those problems, but I also enjoy teaching other people how to solve them. Working on robotics has shown me how much I like taking a complicated physical problem, breaking it into smaller pieces, and gradually turning it into something that works. There is also something uniquely satisfying about watching a machine perform something because you designed it.

BIOLOGY, MEDICINE & BIOTECHNOLOGY

Biology interests me for almost the opposite reason that engineering does. Engineering often lets you define the system you are working with, while biology is full of systems that are already incredibly complicated. I am especially interested in the intersection between biology and engineering: pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical technology, and the ways we can use engineering to manipulate biological systems. Working in pharmaceutical quality control made that interest much more concrete. Watching analytical instruments produce data on real products made me realize that science is not only about discovering something new; sometimes it is about making sure something already exists is actually safe and reliable.

ECONOMICS, POLITICS & SOCIETY

Probably the strangest interest on this list is economics and politics. I can spend hours debating why governments make certain decisions, why economies develop differently, how incentives change people's behaviour, or why policies that look good on paper sometimes fail in reality. What I like about these subjects is that they force me to think differently from the way I think about engineering. In engineering, I can often isolate variables, define constraints, and test a solution. In economics and politics, the system is full of people who react to what you do, incentives change, and almost nothing happens in isolation. I like that uncertainty. It forces me to argue for an explanation without ever being completely sure that I have found the right one.

Cars and Motorsport

I have been passionate about cars since I was very little. My family lived in Toronto at the time, and we would go to the Toronto auto show every year. With my general interest in automobiles, it was natural that I also ended up taking an interest in motorsport. I have followed F1 very closely since Grade 9, and I also occasionally watch other series like F2, IndyCar, WEC (World Endurance Championship), and WRC (World Rally Championship). My love for cars and racing has carried over into my life at school as well; it led me to join our school’s Auto Club in Grade 9, where we build electric go-karts and race them at the University of Waterloo in May of each year.

The Craft of Scent & Fragrance

I developed an interest in fragrance when I was about 13 years old, specifically in the way a scent can have so many layers. It fascinated me how its scent profile can be completely different a few hours after application compared to its opening notes. To me, it is amazing that perfumers can create a liquid that smells exactly like a specific fruit or captures the atmosphere of a certain setting. Over the years, I have put together a collection of colognes with many different scent profiles, and I definitely plan to keep building it in the future.

Pickleball

This interest is pretty recent, just starting this year. I have known about pickleball for a few years, but over the summer, I started playing quite a bit with my cousins. Since the start of the school year, I have been playing about three times a week after school with a small group of friends. When I first got into it, I just bought inexpensive, basic paddles that were nothing too special. Since then, I have learned a lot more about the sport and was lucky enough to have a close friend gift me a solid T700 carbon fiber paddle. I immediately noticed a difference in my gameplay, and now my main goal is to become much better at pickleball than the person who gave it to me.

Travel Planning

I actually enjoy planning vacations, sometimes more so than the actual trip itself, although saying it out loud makes it seem like a bit of an odd hobby, which it probably is.

The act of selecting a place, booking flights, choosing accommodation, and creating an itinerary brings me a sense of peace and calm. My family and I went to Portugal with two other families over the summer. I was in charge of booking the flights, rental cars, hotels, and excursions for the twelve of us. Even though everyone thought I was overwhelmed by the amount of work it was, I had a great time pulling everything together, even though it required several months of planning and frequent communication.

Engineering and Technology

For as long as I can remember, I have always been interested in the way things work, specifically from an engineering perspective. I think that curiosity is what initially sparked my interest in cars and later in technology when I got my first phone and laptop. I became very interested in hardware, and I remember back in Grade 8, John and I took it upon ourselves to optimize the computers in our school library and classrooms. We took them apart, switched the operating systems, and upgraded parts like the RAM and GPUs.

More recently, that same curiosity has drawn me toward watches, especially automatic movements. It amazes me how dozens of tiny mechanical gears and springs work together to keep accurate time without needing a battery. Engineering is not just a casual hobby for me though, it is also what I plan to study in university.