I peered into the blue plastic bag. Instead of a warm, hearty meal, all I saw was a thick blob of goo. Freeze-dried backpacking food is gross. Even after a long hike on the trail, it does not hit the spot. Unfortunately, during Boy Scout Troop 223’s annual two-week backpacking trips, those globs were our dinner, whether we liked it or not. One night, however, was different. The first annual trip I went on took place in the Sierra Mountains...

Recently, I’ve been very captivated by the world of robotics, so when it came time to start thinking about what colleges to apply to, Carnegie Mellon’s well-known history of involvement in robotics was of great interest to me. I also know that at Carnegie Mellon I would have the opportunity to perform some very thought-provoking research, even as an undergraduate. In junior year, I joined my school’s VEX Robotics Team, and was immediately hooked. I spent hours...

I grew up in Los Angeles, as did my mom. My dad, on the other hand, grew up on the other side of the world, in Kiev, Ukraine. At that point, however, it was the USSR. He lived in a world known for oppression. When he was in his twenties, he left with his parents for the United States. They were allowed to bring very little with them, so when he got here, my dad had to work hard to...

That depends. I don’t call myself a “geek” or a “nerd,” but I have friends who like to call me a nerd from time to time. Now, I’m not someone who spends all their time playing videogames or in front of a computer (although I did just spend a while trying to Google the difference between a geek and a nerd), and I’m not someone who’d you’d classify as a nerd at first sight – I�...

The other night, I watched the movie Robot and Frank. Robot and Frank is set in the near future, and focuses on an elderly man whose son, worried that his father can no longer live alone, has bought him a humanoid robot caretaker. The elderly man hates the very idea of this, but he eventually learns to become companions with the robot through many humorous and moving moments. While the movie is a comedy, the underlying point is that sometimes,...

My grandfather was a mechanical engineer. My dad, electrical. My brother is on his way to becoming a computer engineer. Point is, engineering is in my blood, and I want to carry on the tradition. My involvement in robotics has taught me to love the moments when there’s no obvious solution – when we really have to put our heads together and think outside the box; for me, solving those problems the best part of the experience. My immersion in...

In junior year, my physics teacher suggested I join Viewpoint’s VEX Robotics team, and within a week I was coming in during my lunch periods and after school to build all sorts of projects. By the end of the month, I had built a pizza delivery robot, complete with a video camera that streamed to our physics room’s SmartBoard and a combination lock to open the pizza box. That was a lot of fun, but now I was...

I joined the Viewpoint VEX Robotics Team in my junior year. I was immediately hooked. My friend and I spent hours upon hours after school and during free periods building not only a VEX competition robot, but also a pizza delivery robot, just for fun. Over the summer, we also began building a 6 foot tall trophy delivery robot that will be used to deliver the trophies for the VEX California statewide tournament in March, and may even be delivering trophies...

Throughout middle school, I had Mr. Harlan as my science teacher. Mr. Harlan was a great teacher not only because he was very down-to-earth and made concepts easy to understand, but also because he believed that the best way to learn is through experience. Through this idea, he created a science class heavily based on experimentation. Lectures were important, sure, but most of our time was spend at the lab tables, setting up our own experiments, formulating hypotheses, and learning...

“Laughter is the best medicine.” We’ve all heard the saying, and there’s really some truth behind it. Laughter, according to the Mayo Clinic, eases stress, relaxes muscles, strengthens your immune system, and relieves pain, all in addition to making you feel good. But there’s another reason why I think laughter matters. I believe it helps in life to not take yourself too seriously from time to time; it’s important to be able to step back every...