STEM stories: Paul Galvan

Each year the Bridge to Engineering Success at Tufts (BEST) program welcomes a new cohort of students from groups underrepresented in STEM fields. Over the course of their undergraduate career, the BEST program provides a comprehensive, thriving environment for the students to support their personal and academic growth. BEST operates through the Center for STEM Diversity (CSD) at Tufts in conjunction with the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and the School of Engineering, and is led by CSD Associate Director Sehba Hasan.

This series highlights the work that BEST students are doing at Tufts. 

In April of 2023, BEST participant Paul Galvan, E26, worked with Research Associate Professor Ethan Danahy to build Easter-related projects for LEGO Education. Working together, Galvan and Danahy designed an effective egg-drop for an audience of roughly 100 children. A few weeks later, LEGO Education asked for 17 more replicas of the project, which they would send to the White House by the end of that week for the annual White House Easter EGGucation Roll. Galvan had three days to design the project, replicate it, and send it out to an army base for the project to get screened. In this process, Galvan and team added a safety mechanism and produced several backups of each component in case of breakages.  

Galvan and Danahy traveled to Washington D.C. to facilitate activities using their robots at the event. On the day of the egg roll, the team set up their robots early in the morning and spent the rest of the day interacting with the children and families who attended the event. It was a surreal experience for Galvan, who reports feeling proud of the quality of his work. Galvan recalls one of his favorite memories from the experience was, "seeing my design work all day with minor problems, which we were then able to use and serve to 35,000 people, including 15,000 happy kids," he said.