About¶
I’m Christopher Leon, but I go by Chris. Currently, I am a Fab Manager for the Lorain County Community College Super FabLab in northern Ohio.
A brief history of Chris¶
I was born in a small town in the western outer-ring of Cleveland, Ohio. Straddling the cusp between Generation X and Millennial, so I had an analog childhood, a digital adolescence, and a connected adulthood. I’ve always been interested in how things work. I was that kid who would always be taking toys apart and trying to put them back together, with varying degrees of success. That, and the era in which I grew up, led me to have interests in both mechanical and electronic systems. My first real hobby started as a teen when I got my first car, a Ford Mustang. My step-father taught me, from day one, how to fix and maintain cars. That got me hooked to all things cars. I was part of the Fast and the Furious tuner scene, drifting, and drag racing. Building custom cars is very expensive. To save money, I expanded on the things learned from my step-father, and taught myself how to modify the computer-controlled cars of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. That’s where my interest in computers and electronics grew out of. I currently drive a 2017 Ford Focus ST, which is a perfect blend of high-tech computer tech and old-school, manual transmission, high horsepower fun.
Personal background¶
I lived most of my 20’s not thinking about my future. I worked various retail jobs; selling, management, and logistics. In 2014 I reached a point where I realized I was unhappy with the direction of my life and decided to make a change. I left my job with a certain fruit-based electronics company, and pursued a degree in welding and fabrication at my local community college. While enrolled, I took a class called Digital Fabrication that met in the FabLab. Before this, I didn’t know that the FabLab even existed, let alone what is was. What I learned in those 10 weeks literally changed my life. I loved every aspect of what the FabLab offered. It combined my interest in computers with my background in fabrication. During this time, I was employed as a student worker in the welding lab, so I got to spend a lot of time on campus and using the FabLab during their open lab hours. When I graduated with my Associates in 2016, the college was i the process of expanding the FabLab with a large addition to the building. Through a random series of events, I ended up employed by the college as a part-time lab aide for the FabLab. For the next two years, I worked my way up and eventually got promoted to a full-time Lab Instructional Assistant. Since then, my job role has expanded to a Lab Manager. An interesting fact about the FabLab I work in is that it’s the second lab in the United States and the 10th in the world. My boss is one of the few Fab Guru’s in the world, and Fab Academy is something my college offered for me to take.I saw it as a huge opportunity to expand my knowledge of lab processes and further network with other people and labs.
Some fun things¶
I’ve been married to my amazing wife, Rae, since 2016. We have two very large dogs; a Bernese Mountain Dog named Rallye, a Great Pyrenees named Rhys. We’ll be adding another Great Pyrenees, named Ryker, to our family in late March 2020.
I cook and bake often, and recently bought a Instant Pot. I highly recommend it. I’m also a movie buff. Horror and science-fiction being my favorite genres. I’m especially fond of the found-footage sub-genre. The streaming revolution allowed me to find some truly amazing indie films.
Possible Final project¶
My final project idea is called the “Angry Cloud/Peaceful Cloud”. It’ll be a lamp that simulates a lightning storm using addressable LED’s. The closer somebody gets to the lamp, the more violent the storm becomes, hence, angry cloud. It will, however, have the ability to activate a “calm” mode, in which it could be used as a night light.