The sun beats down on the trailer as it inches along. Sweat drips down my neck. My wrists feel like rubber, my throat like parchment. And yet, my focus is elsewhere. My right hand glides across the keys while the left keeps time to the pounding of the kick drum. I grope blindly with my foot for the damper pedal, which manages to slide away every time we hit a bump. I knew I should have taped it down last...

Only two weeks remained, and it hadn’t even moved. I’ll be honest: we were a rookie team; we had no idea what we were doing. As lead programmer, I had taught myself Java and written the code that would make our robot operate. But I had a problem: when I ran my code on the robot, an error message appeared. The chassis remained lifeless. Solving computer bugs can be tedious. But to me, there is something enticing about...

Science fiction writers have fantasized about artificial intelligence (AI) for decades. But in the coming years, advanced AI will become a reality. I first learned about the capabilities of AI through robotics. As my team’s lead programmer, I’m responsible for programming our robot’s autonomous mode, which employs basic AI techniques like state machines. At the World Championship in Houston, I talked with with other programmers, learning that the key to more precise autonomous control is computer vision,...

I slung my acoustic guitar over my shoulder, donned a green bandana (my dorm hall's signature headgear), and headed out the door with my roommate Colby. When we arrived at the other side of Berry College, students were already clustered to watch the sunset. I was simply there to add the flavor of music to the already-strawberry sky. I pulled out my guitar, began strumming a song, and Colby—a gifted vocalist—carried the melody. Other students quickly joined in. ...

I nervously opened the door and immediately felt the stares of the students. I was volunteering as a teaching assistant in an ESOL Algebra class, and this was the first class. I have been tutoring math and other subjects since ninth grade. The summer after freshman year, several friends and I started a tutoring business to promote our tutoring services and offer summer group math review classes. During junior year, I realized that our services were not reaching a huge...