Kindergarteners often want to be astronauts; a former kindergartener, I stuck with my dream longer than most. But no dreamer, I recognise being the first human on Mars takes planning. Last year, I started learning Russian to communicate with cosmonauts. I read every NASA astronaut’s biography. Over the last few years, I’ve dedicated myself to pursuing the core values of NASA astronauts: resilience, creativity and adaptability, teamwork, and curiosity. My four years on my NASA-sponsored FIRST robotics team,...

For the past four years, I’ve spent my nights in a rundown building by a NASA airfield, home to our all-girls FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team, the Space Cookies. On a typical night, the programmers rule the whiteboards. We scribble free-body diagrams, drafting complex algorithms to keep our robot aligned. “Aha!” cries Divya,“the derivative of rotational error is rotational joystick speed!” Lynn, another rookie, doodles a smiley by “dtheta”. Our rookies love calculus but couldn’t have solved...

As a child, I filled notebooks with symbols and ciphers of my own devising, each with a certain meaning. I know now that I was creating rudimentary languages. Back then, I simply loved the patterns I found everywhere around me. To me, computer science (CS) is a field based in the study of patterns. From its roots in math, which Michael D. Resnik called the “Science of Patterns” in his 1981 text, to the concept of design patterns, CS interests me...

For the past four years, I’ve spent my nights in a rundown building by a NASA airfield, home to our all-girls robotics team, the Space Cookies. On a typical night, the programmers rule the whiteboards. We scribble free-body diagrams, drafting complex algorithms to keep our robot aligned. “I got it!” cries Divya, three months into the team. “The derivative of rotational error’s the rotational joystick speed!” Lynn, another rookie, doodles a smiley by “dtheta”. Our rookies love calculus...

The summer before sophomore year was a prime summer. I participated in the California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science. For four weeks, I explored topology, symmetry, hyperbolic geometry, and the twin prime conjecture, the widely accepted but still unproven concept that there exist infinitely many twin primes. To me, math is reassuring in its truth. But prime numbers fascinate me because although math is a study of patterns, in all the research, primes have evaded any predictability. As...

The largest of only three Girl Scout FRC teams in the world, the Space Cookies have played a huge role in impacting not just my life, but in the thousands of youth we reach locally and globally with our unique science and engineering opportunities. As a rookie on my robotics team, I was one of the few who made it onto the programming subteam--an isolated group lacking sufficient trained members to create a sustainable infrastructure. The programming leadership seemed to...

As a preschooler, I filled notebooks with symbols and ciphers of my own creation. I know now that I was creating rudimentary languages. Back then, I loved the patterns I found everywhere. To me, computer science (CS) is based in studying patterns. From its roots in math, which is the science of patterns, to the concept of design patterns, reusable solutions to recurring problems, CS interests me because it harnesses patterns to address challenges. My current interest in CS is...

As a preschooler, I filled notebooks with symbols and ciphers of my own devising, each with a certain meaning. I know now that I was creating rudimentary languages. Back then, I simply loved the patterns I found everywhere around me. To me, computer science (CS) is a field based in the study of patterns. From its roots in math to design patterns, reusable solutions to recurring problems, CS interests me because it harnesses patterns to address challenges. My goal at...

For the past four years, I’ve spent my nights in a rundown building by a NASA airfield, unobtrusive compared to nearby Hangar One. Inside, our robotics lab is warm, vibrant, and home to my all-girls team, the Space Cookies. On a typical Saturday night in January, the programming team holds sovereignty over the whiteboards. We scribble out free body diagrams full of vectors and angles, drafting complex algorithms to keep our robot moving straight. “I just thought of something!”...

As a preschooler, I filled notebooks with symbols and ciphers of my own devising, each with a certain meaning. I know now that I was creating rudimentary languages. Back then, I simply loved the patterns I found everywhere around me. To me, computer science (CS) is a field based in the study of patterns. From its roots in math, the science of patterns, to the concept of design patterns, a generally reusable solution to a recurring problem, CS interests me...