BEYOND the BOOKS
BUILT TO THE
TEST A
NGUS FRASER ’16 has long
followed in his father’s
footsteps — and they’ve taken him, literally, all the way down the stairs into the woodshop at their home in Darien. As a young boy, Angus would watch his dad, John, hard at work at his hobby — fixing, building, sanding, sawing, staining, finishing. John, in fact, built his own wine cellar adjacent to the woodshop in the family’s basement. Angus would always lend a hand,
of attitude — made Angus the
and, before long, he began construc-
ideal candidate for ’Wick’s Science
tion on his own projects — benches,
Research Seminar, taught by depart-
tables, and even an Adirondack chair
ment chair Dana Montanez. He
that sits in the backyard, offering a
thought the same — and enrolled in
comfortable place to read or relax for
the young but ever-popular class to
any of the five Frasers.
put his engineering skills to the test.
Now, it’s almost an obsession for
When deciding on a year-long
the Brunswick senior — the wood-
project, Angus expanded on one
shop has become his own, private
he’d read about while following the
sanctuary. “I’d often head down
Google Science Fair: The Hollow
there by myself before dinnertime,”
Flashlight, a device that provides
he said. “And before I knew it, it’d be
bright light without batteries or
after midnight. I had missed dinner,
moving parts and runs solely on the
and my parents would have to drag
heat of the human hand.
me out and up to bed. “I love the process — designing,
The flashlight helps young children in third-world countries generate
building, refining, and learning. And
enough light to do their homework
then doing it all over again.”
after dark.
This type of mindset — this type
56 | TIMES
OF BRUNSWICK • FALL 2015
“I was determined to make it
TOP Angus and his dad, John, are known to spend hours at work (or play) in their family’s woodshop. ABOVE Angus Fraser ’16, pictured here at ISWEEEP, explained every little detail of his project to expert judges at the world-renowned science fair.