I am Paul Nichols. I graduated with a BSc in Biomedical Science and then gained a MSc in Brewing Science both from the University of Sheffield.
After a stint in the brewing industry, I changed career at the start of 2016. I started getting involved modelling and teaching the CAD program Rhino. This allowed me to quickly build up my skills in Rhino and also Grasshopper, introducing me to parametric design and modelling on hugely different scales. It has been amazing to see the solutions that designers and engineers have come up with using these programs.
I am a returning student to Fab Academy having taken part in 2017 at IAAC Barcelona. I really enjoyed the program, but found my interests distracting and perhaps I took over ambitious routes. Also not paying attention to spiral development, I ended up getting stuck on step C when I should have paid more attention to step A. I have developed an interest in the open source nature of the work Fab Academy does and I would like to create something that can be reproduced in other Fab Labs.
I hope to combine my knowledge of biology and anatomy with the practical and theoretical skills I will learn on this course to give me a unique viewpoint on design challenges and move my virtual skills into reality.
I am often prohibitively ambitious, but I hope with the amazing network and knowledge base that the FabAcademy provides, I can achieve those ambitions.
Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play
– Immanuel Kant