Graduating Senior Allen Benjamin '23 Reflects on Design Showcase, Future Goals

This Saturday, Allen Benjamin, a senior graduating with a degree in computer engineering, will be walking across the commencement stage. 

Benjamin's journey with the College of Engineering has been marked by one standout experience — his senior design project. This experience is required for all engineering students. Teams complete a capstone project and present it at the annual Engineering Design Showcase, sharing their designs with the public. 

Benjamin's team collaborated on creating an autonomous vehicle from an RC car. The project involved designing a custom circuit board for the motor, integrating cameras and sensors for environmental detection and coding the car to navigate, stay within lane lines, obey traffic signs and manage its speed — a comprehensive application of his computer engineering knowledge.

"This was my favorite project because everything that I learned in my major was applied to this project," he said. "My favorite thing about computer engineering is robotics, and this was the most challenging, fun, and rewarding project that I've worked on."

Benjamin is currently working as a hardware engineer at a UC Davis-funded startup, AIVision Food. Looking toward the future, Benjamin's passion for robotics is apparent, as he has aspirations to build a career as a robotics engineer after obtaining a master's degree in computer engineering. 

To his fellow students, and some extent himself, Benjamin offers a piece of advice.

"Stay the course. It's going to be difficult, but your achievements will be very rewarding. You're doing good work."