Welcome to my i2 page! My name is Mateo Alves and I am currently a junior at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory. Although I attend school in San Francisco, I live in San Bruno. I am currently a part of the i2 program at SHC, which has allowed me to participate in yearly projects, as well as enroll in rigorous courses.

In general, my favorite courses that I have taken at SHC so far are the math and science courses. I have enjoyed the variety of science courses that I have been offered up to this point, with my favorite being Honors Chemistry. I enjoyed the structure of this course, combining calculations, scientific principles, and lab experiments. Because of my time in Honors Chemistry, I am looking forward to taking AP Chemistry next year for my senior year. I have also enjoyed the rigorous math courses I have had the opportunity to take. I am currently taking AP Calculus AB this year and I am looking to continue learning more about calculus next year by taking AP Calculus BC.

Outside of my classes, I am also a part of the robotics club at SHC. I am part of the machine learning team of the robotics club, in which I have learned a great deal about neural networks and the coding involved in machine learning. I have found this club to be especially valuable because I am also taking a Java computer science course this year, so the additional work with coding has had an especially prominent impact on my understanding of coding and computer science. Along with being a member of the robotics club, I am also a member of the California Scholarship Federation at SHC. As a member, I am encouraged to share my talents with other members of the community through community service. As part of my community service, I tutor other juniors weekly and help them with work from their math courses.

Outside of SHC, I have recently started coaching for a local baseball club in my hometown of San Bruno. I predominantly work with nine, ten, and eleven year old players, although I also occasionally work with twelve year old players, as well. I recently stopped playing baseball for my high school, so I find the opportunity to work with young kids and help them develop into good baseball players, and more importantly good people, extremely valuable. I look forward to continuing coaching these young players and I hope that I can learn from them as much as they learn from me.

This year, my i2 project involves developing insoles that use piezoelectric crystals to convert kinetic energy from walking into electrical energy capable of charging a portable battery pack. This battery pack will be attached to a person’s shoe laces so that they can easily access and use the battery pack to charge electronic devices, such as their phones.

MY BLOGS

Junior Year Project Update

Since my last blog post, my group and I have decided on a project idea and made considerable progress. My junior project is developing insoles that contain piezoelectric crystals that allow the wearer to convert the kinetic energy from walking into electrical energy that can charge a portable battery pack, which can then charge a […] Read more

Junior Year Project Blog

My group and I have decided to move on from last year’s project. We ran into obstacles we were not able to work through, so we thought it would be best to move onto new ideas and projects. For our junior year project, we are thinking of taking on a project that relates to baseball, […] Read more

i2 Projects

Piezoelectric Shoes

The purpose of our project is to create insoles that use piezoelectric crystals to convert the kinetic energy of a person walking into electrical energy capable of charging a portable battery pack. This portable battery pack, attached to the laces of a person's shoe, could then be used to charge an electronic device such as a phone, even while someone is away from an outlet.

Project details

Golf Swing Analyzer

The purpose of our project was to design a device that could be attached to the end of a golf club and provide the user with feedback regarding their swing, as well as information on how to correct their swing. By using an Inertial Measurement Unit to gather information regarding the orientation of the club face with respect to the ground as well as with respect to the user. An Arduino would then be able to process this information and report it to the user using a display also attached to the club.

Project details