When I was 10 years old, I read an article about a drone created by Princeton students that could both fly and swim underwater, and I was amazed at how cool and wonderful this invention was. This ignited a spark of intellectual curiosity that is still burning inside. I read all the books on computer science and design that I could get, burned my fingers with a soldering iron and slowly, project by project, turned into a competent and enthusiastic designer. But learning can’t happen in a bubble, so I decided to share.
I have a small workshop at home with all kinds of equipment and tools. First, I showed my brother how to make a basic diagram and write basic code, and the reward for seeing how excited he was about new skills prompted me to invite friends and colleagues. Later it became more extensive and diverse, becoming a meeting place for representatives of different styles and points of view, and turns into a full-fledged school club. Now we regularly meet and collaborate on quite large-scale projects that help our local community. For example, we recently manufactured an intelligent battery container for our school, where students can recycle batteries and receive data on the cubic meters of soil saved in this case. In my opinion, this kind of organic synergy underlies civic engagement. It may seem almost staggeringly simple, but these are the building blocks of our modern world.