We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mason Tiruchelvam a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Mason, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?
I’ve loved science, math, and engineering for a long time. I remember having a blast with Mad Science in 1st and 2nd grade, and then moving on to Robotics in 3rd and 4th. I really wanted a place where people who also like these things can come and learn together—and that is exactly why this club was started!
It started on a Saturday, when I was doing some fun coding to print a fun fidget on my 3D printer. I thought, how cool would that be if we learned such fun aspects in school. I started by brainstorming what this could look like at school. I put an objective together, what the journey of this club would look like. I quickly went into action and emailed my advanced math and science teachers asking for their co-sponsorship about this idea. After receiving their approval, I emailed our school Leadership Team to ask them for a meeting to present my idea, our very first STEAM club at St Matthew Catholic School.
Within a week, I had a meeting with our Dean of Education, Dean of Operations and Dean of School Affairs. I presented my idea and how even to keep the longevity of it after I graduate in a few years. I left behind a 3-month lookahead of what the agenda would look like for each meeting. Each meeting would include a lesson by one of our co-sponsors and a hands on activity to see how it all comes together in a real life example.
Upon receiving their approval and speaking to the co-sponsors about the topic of our first meeting: Solar Energy, I posted a fun poster in the middle school classrooms and reached out to teachers inquiring for a few minutes of their class’s time to present the club. I was excited to see so much enthusiasm and getting over two dozen students that signed up!
Given there was no funds provided for this club, I used my own birthday money funds and purchased 30 solar car kits to be used for the hands on activity of the first meeting. I even did one of the kits myself prior to the first meeting to make sure it was easy and fit within the time of the meeting.
With a few reminder emails, came the first meeting. Everyone showed up, it was such a moment of celebration for me because it happened, an idea that I had came to life! In fact, everyone asked quickly when the next meeting was because they were so excited.
The next meeting is quickly approaching and its about Structural Engineering, something that is close to my heart as my mom is a civil engineering and my dad builds lots of great structures including our own home. My science teacher will teach a lesson, and I am bringing my own shake table from home so we can all build models in teams and compete against each other to see which one will survive a certain seismic activity on the shake table.
Thank you to the St Matthew Catholic Leadership Team for giving the opportunity to make this happen and to our co-sponsors, Mr. Figueroa and Mr. Situ, for teaching us each lesson!
Mason, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Many call me an old soul, a renaissance man with a passion for in depth conversations. Whether it’s about the two worlds, my parents come from: Iran and Sri Lanka, or about the best bait to use when I fish, conversations and listening connect me to the world and bring out my most original ideas. The ethics and drive I show are a reflection of my mom’s journey to this country. While not easy, I have learned from my grandparents and my mom who are immigrants to have empathy and never to complain and when faced with challenges I have learned to build and grow from it.
I was introduced to Farsi, the main language spoken in Iran at a young age. My mom encouraged me to learn my family’s language. After six years of studying Farsi, I’m confident in my reading, writing, and conversing abilities with my great grandmother, grandparents, Farsi teacher, uncle and mom. Being from a multicultural household, I have had the opportunity to hear and learn from different perspectives.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
My fascination with how the world works has always led back to one thing: math. Everything in the world has something to do with it! When I watch history programs about ancient structures, I am in awe of the math used to design and engineer these ancient structures such as the pyramids in Egypt and the Moai heads on Easter Island. I realize they used basic algebra and geometry to build the structures. To support my passion for math and building too, I put myself to the test! Staying in Lake Tahoe for a long weekend, I had some extra time on my hands. Looking out into the woods, I knew I had all the raw materials I needed to make a fort. I began with drawing the fort to scale. I included the measurements for the sides and the roof. I applied all I knew about slope, angles, and weight. In the end, I built a sturdy fort out of branches, leaves, and some stones for the entrance. Math has always been a deep passion of mine. I have always loved learning new methods on how to approach problems. I remember looking over my dad’s shoulder at his computer and asking him, “Why are there so many lines, numbers and graphs?” My dad replied, “ Math is part of everyday life, and that’s why you should learn it.” This message from my dad has been a large motivator for me in my math journey. I see around me everything involves some sort of math.
For me, my passion for mathematics is rooted in the challenge of not knowing, at first, how a math problem works, and how I might solve it, possibly getting it wrong, but trying again to find the solution, and maybe finding more than one way to find the solution. Mathematics opens my mind to thinking and understanding in ways that I initially did not think nor see.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Like learning Farsi, I had a similar dedication in learning how to play guitar, another new language. During my first few music lessons, it was hard to understand the sheet music, but the more I kept at it, the more I became familiar with the music notes, the more it started to look less like abstract art and more like music. I have learned that pushing through hard areas has its own rewards like challenging math problems, and learning a new language, challenging and very rewarding!