By Nicole Morozin
CCC Journalism Program
BLACKWOOD – As this semester comes to a close, the Camden County College Blackwood campus’s engineering club is brewing up big ideas. Among the members is Brent Tillman, a motivated young man who helped to cofound the club.
The engineering club was founded in the fall of 2012, Tillman’s first year at CCC. The head founder, Owen Cabalceta, had gone class to class to find anyone who may be interested. When Cabalceta showed up in Tillman’s CAD course, he knew the club would be a great way to fuel and expand on the interests he’s always had.
Tillman, 19, is both treasurer and electrical engineering project manager of the club. The electronic-based position is something Tillman, who also works at the Camden County Library in Voorhees, dreamed of in his younger years.
“I always used to play with the knobs on stereos and try to build things when I was younger,” he stated. “I knew from then on that I really loved technology.”
But it was in his junior year at Timber Creek Regional High School in Sicklerville when his decision to become an engineering major took flight. While in a class that focused mainly on technological concepts, Tillman said the love he always had for technology and inventing was finally given a name.
And this love has taken him through to CCC, as the engineering club takes on its newest invention: a Research Based Hydroponics System (RBHP) which allows the user to grow plants in an isolated environment and monitor every variable. The system is being built from nothing, and the students are happily welding it together and making it their own.
“There’s nothing really like it,” Tillman excitedly exclaimed.
Throughout this project, Tillman has taken on many major technological aspects but has also contributed to ideas and other work that help to keep the club running. And Cabalceta has nothing but good things to say about Tillman’s contributions.
“(He) is a hard-working student and a good leader within the club,” Cabalceta explained.
The club plans to give the RBHP to the biology department upon completion to help CCC to grow as a community and further its research.
This RBHP has proved to be a challenge to the club, but rewarding all the same.
“It’s stressful sometimes to have work and school and then go do work for the club,” Tillman said. “But it’s always worth it.”
Brent Tillman studies before Wednesday’s engineering club meeting. By Nicole Morozin, CCC Journalism Program