M5 Newsletter March 10th 2025

Dear Reader,

As much as I love writing the weekly email, the best part of my job is witnessing the immense talent and determination that fills M5 every day.

This week was no exception. Kyle Klem, a junior electrical engineering student, has a deep fascination with electric guitars.

He combined his passion with his major and created a Fuzz Face pedal for his guitar. "[It produces] a very popular effect from the '60s," Kyle explained, "like the kind Jimi Hendrix used."

Right now, he has a working breadboard prototype with two potentiometers controlling the volume and the amount of fuzz effect. In two weeks, his custom PCB will arrive.

I asked him about balancing his love for audio with his engineering studies. He shook his head and said, "You can mix all of the stuff you learn in electrical engineering with guitar pedals."

In other words, it didn’t feel like a balancing act at all—his studies fueled his passion.

And that, at the end of the day, is why we’re all in engineering. It’s why we take difficult classes, persist through challenging material, and, ultimately, why you, dear reader, are reading this email. 

Yours,
Alex Reineke