Daniel has striven to become an aeronautical engineer since his first flight at 19 days old. He truly appreciates having belonged to a community of like-minded friends in the program who always inspired him to aim sky-high.

He has dedicated thousands of hours as the hardware leader of FTC team Taro #13218. Daniel taught himself computer aided design (CAD) skills from scratch, learning from Youtube and practicing for eons in Onshape. He also greatly enjoyed volunteering for the SLAM program since its very inception. As leader of the R.E.P.S. team (Restoring Endemic Plant Species), he led the design of the "California Corridor", a 5600 square foot native plant garden at Pomeroy Elementary School.

Outside of academics, he has played water polo on both club and school teams starting in sophomore year. Daniel began playing the violin at 5 years old and has graduated recently from the Silicon Valley Youth Symphony. Daniel has two black belts, one in Taekwondo and another in Kumdo, the Korean sword martial art. Additionally, he has been an altar server for 6 years and earned the title of acolyte for St. Justin Parish.

He loves to read about sci-fi, fantasy, history, geography, and of course, aviation.

​