About Me

My name is Alexander Clark Cairns, I'm finishing up my Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering at Florida State University, and I want to use my talents as engineer to create and inspire. From a young age I've been exposed to mechanical engineering, not only in the ways that almost everyone is now through cars and planes, robot vacuums and AI assistants, but through my grandpa, Malcolm Cairns. You see, as a child I would steal his prosthetic leg (he was a diabetic amputee), and put Lego bricks or Hot Wheel cars inside of it. This covers many branches of engineering, from the injection molded plastic, to the scaled down models of classic American muscle cars that would fit perfectly in a wind-tunnel. It even covers the materials design used to make the leg light along with the structural mechanics to make sure it could withstand every load he applied to it! Now these days I don't steal engineering projects of course, but thinking back to my grandpa I remember the many things that he taught me. The lessons I learned from my grandpa are parts of me I carry now and into the future, he taught me to treat everyone with kindness and respect, to forever apply all of my abilities to any task I face, and above all else how to be creative and how to face the world with vigor and strength. He also taught me not to take myself too seriously, so I will let my work in the pages above speak for itself.