Ping. Pong. Ping. Pong, Whack!
This is what someone would hear if they came into my basement while I had a friend over. Table tennis, in my opinion, is the easiest of the fun sports. No running, no jumping, and all spectacularly granted with being indoors. The reason I love ping pong is because it allows me to use my hands. Nearly any activity I like to do involves using my hands. Whether it's solving a Rubik’s cube as quickly as possible, or putting a computer together piece by piece. My left brain thinking and personality allows me to grasp ideas easier if I can touch, see a picture of, or manipulate them physically. I’d always loved to learn hands on and on Christmas many years ago, I discovered how much fun building was.
I tore open one of my Christmas gifts to find a 300 piece Lego helicopter set. I went upstairs and dumped every piece out on the floor and began putting it together, piece by piece in complete solitude. Once I was finished, I glanced at the clock and noticed that hours had slipped by without me even noticing. It was at that point I realised how amazing building was. I got to use my hands to put something together that I could be proud of, and didn’t need anyone else to be entertained. In late middle school and early high school, I moved off of legos to more functioning projects. Instead of having a five pound Lego Millennium Falcon, I had a five foot tall moving roller coaster model with flips and a moving chain lift. The more my projects did after I was finished with them, the more I seemed to love them and enjoyed creating them. I was happy creating builds with fast moving parts and high functionality, but my eyes were truly opened once I was given the chance to build my own computer. I couldn’t tell you any other gift I got on that Christmas, nor did I really care. I went straight to my room and (carefully) unboxed everything as fast as I could. Using instructions online, I put each piece where it belonged, the …show more content…
I thought up, drew 8-bit sprites, coded the physics, implemented unique level dependent challenges, tested gameplay and functionality, and spent well over 20 hours on my own video game about gravity on other planets. My work paid off when it took me to a first place finish at the state competition in TSA. I’ve also worked with a college professor at Virginia Tech as he showed me how computers in his labs communicate with and track satellites. That opened my eyes to things I would have never thought about, but shows me the capabilities of computing in the modern time. All these things in my life, computers allowed me to do. They let me be free and really nerd out and have fun with my spare time. Using my computer, I read up about electrical circuits and how exactly computers functioned, which allowed me to understand that I’m interested in Computer and Electrical Engineering. A circuit design is something I can see and easily understand, then I can actually create it using my hands and some tools, and it has a level of functionality I look for in my projects. My love of math and patterns, as well as physics aspect of electricity in this area makes it fun and interesting for me. And with quantum computing on the horizon, maybe I’ll be able to design and create computers which can fly a real Millennium
This is what someone would hear if they came into my basement while I had a friend over. Table tennis, in my opinion, is the easiest of the fun sports. No running, no jumping, and all spectacularly granted with being indoors. The reason I love ping pong is because it allows me to use my hands. Nearly any activity I like to do involves using my hands. Whether it's solving a Rubik’s cube as quickly as possible, or putting a computer together piece by piece. My left brain thinking and personality allows me to grasp ideas easier if I can touch, see a picture of, or manipulate them physically. I’d always loved to learn hands on and on Christmas many years ago, I discovered how much fun building was.
I tore open one of my Christmas gifts to find a 300 piece Lego helicopter set. I went upstairs and dumped every piece out on the floor and began putting it together, piece by piece in complete solitude. Once I was finished, I glanced at the clock and noticed that hours had slipped by without me even noticing. It was at that point I realised how amazing building was. I got to use my hands to put something together that I could be proud of, and didn’t need anyone else to be entertained. In late middle school and early high school, I moved off of legos to more functioning projects. Instead of having a five pound Lego Millennium Falcon, I had a five foot tall moving roller coaster model with flips and a moving chain lift. The more my projects did after I was finished with them, the more I seemed to love them and enjoyed creating them. I was happy creating builds with fast moving parts and high functionality, but my eyes were truly opened once I was given the chance to build my own computer. I couldn’t tell you any other gift I got on that Christmas, nor did I really care. I went straight to my room and (carefully) unboxed everything as fast as I could. Using instructions online, I put each piece where it belonged, the …show more content…
I thought up, drew 8-bit sprites, coded the physics, implemented unique level dependent challenges, tested gameplay and functionality, and spent well over 20 hours on my own video game about gravity on other planets. My work paid off when it took me to a first place finish at the state competition in TSA. I’ve also worked with a college professor at Virginia Tech as he showed me how computers in his labs communicate with and track satellites. That opened my eyes to things I would have never thought about, but shows me the capabilities of computing in the modern time. All these things in my life, computers allowed me to do. They let me be free and really nerd out and have fun with my spare time. Using my computer, I read up about electrical circuits and how exactly computers functioned, which allowed me to understand that I’m interested in Computer and Electrical Engineering. A circuit design is something I can see and easily understand, then I can actually create it using my hands and some tools, and it has a level of functionality I look for in my projects. My love of math and patterns, as well as physics aspect of electricity in this area makes it fun and interesting for me. And with quantum computing on the horizon, maybe I’ll be able to design and create computers which can fly a real Millennium