126 lines
5.4 KiB
TeX
126 lines
5.4 KiB
TeX
\documentclass[12pt, letterpaper]{article}
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% Packages:
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\usepackage[
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top=0.5in,
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]{geometry}
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\usepackage{times} % Times New Roman font
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\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
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\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
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\usepackage{setspace} % for single spacing
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\usepackage{titlesec} % for customizing section titles
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\usepackage[dvipsnames]{xcolor}
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\definecolor{primaryColor}{RGB}{0, 79, 144}
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\usepackage[
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pdftitle={Wright Scholar Essay},
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pdfauthor={Keshav Anand},
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pdfcreator={LaTeX},
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colorlinks=false,
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hidelinks
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]{hyperref}
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\usepackage{iftex}
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\usepackage{microtype} % Better text rendering
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% Ensure PDF is machine readable:
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\ifPDFTeX
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\pdfgentounicode=1
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\fi
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% Settings:
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\pagestyle{empty} % no header or footer
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\singlespacing % single spacing
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\frenchspacing % Better spacing after periods
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% Custom title format for essay topic
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{\normalfont\fontsize{12}{14.4}\selectfont\bfseries}
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{}
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{0pt}
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{}
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\titlespacing{\section}{0pt}{0pt}{6pt}
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\begin{document}
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\begin{center}
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\textbf{\large Wright Scholar Essay (Topics 1 and 3)}
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\end{center}
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\vspace{12pt}
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294 Squiggly red underlines. Nearly every line of my code had errors.
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Null pointers, incompatible types, undefined variables, Gradle sync errors---I
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had encountered them all. It was February 2024, my freshman year, and we had
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ten minutes to take the field for our First Tech Challenge (FTC) League Finals.
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My heart pounded as keys clattered beneath my flying fingers. My code was broken,
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and for the finals, it had to work. The merciless clock ticked away, and with
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seconds to go, I finally compiled the code. There was no time to test, hardly
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any to breathe. We took the field, and my finger hovered over the play button.
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Time paused. The buzzer sounded, and I pressed play. Success. In two minutes
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and thirty seconds, we won.
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Seven months earlier, I didn't know what a variable was. I was fully into music,
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and programming wasn't even on my radar. When my friend started a robotics team,
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I joined on a whim. My journey began with a Google search. Progress was
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painstakingly slow; it took me two full months to make a motor turn. But
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gradually, I became hooked. Like a sponge, I absorbed everything: tutorials,
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documentation, and even Stack Overflow threads. Eventually, I taught myself
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enough Java to become a functional FTC programmer.
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As the season progressed, we became a competitive team, and my knowledge was
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expanding in parallel. On that competition day, something just clicked. The
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joy I experienced wasn't just from our robot picking up and scoring pixels,
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but from seeing my code produce tangible results. In that moment, I'd found
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my calling. I was no longer just a high school student; I was a STEM student,
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and I was ready to see where my code could take me.
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But that readiness was tested in September 2024. Somewhat naively, I committed
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to building a machine learning model to predict gait patterns in Parkinson's
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Disease for my sophomore-year Science Fair project. The problem? I had no clue
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how. So I dove in: Python syntax, NumPy arrays, signal filtering, feature
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extraction, and model architectures. I had entered unfamiliar territory, and
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each concept brought new confusion. After two months of relentless reading,
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coding, and debugging, I managed to transform raw sensor data into a working
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classification model. Somewhere between the first error message and the final
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96\% accuracy, I had begun to absorb a new discipline.
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I could have stopped there, but I realized that a working model on my laptop
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wasn't going to help any Parkinson's patients, and I needed to embed my model
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into a complete hardware device. This task was beyond daunting, as I had to
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venture into the foreign territory of hardware and electrical engineering.
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With my engineering teacher guiding me, I eventually learned the basics. After
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countless 2 AM KiCAD tutorial sessions, I finally had a working design for a
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custom printed circuit board (PCB) housing a sensor and microcontroller. Two
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weeks later, my PCB arrived, and after soldering all my components, it didn't
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work. My heart sank. In desperation, I resoldered each joint carefully and
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tried again. Somehow, it worked. After writing some C++ software for the
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device, I had something that actually worked. The project eventually made it
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to the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), placing 3rd in
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Robotics and Intelligent Machines. What struck me most wasn't the placement,
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but the fact that six months earlier, I wouldn't have understood any of it.
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Throughout high school, I've taught myself disciplines, from Java programming
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to machine learning to circuit design. The Wright Scholar program offers an
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opportunity to apply my knowledge to critical research. I'm drawn to AFRL's
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Sensors Directorate, where I hope to deepen my understanding of signal
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processing while contributing to sensor exploitation technologies. I'm equally
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fascinated by the Human Performance Wing's work with multimodal sensing to
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monitor and enhance human performance. What excites me most isn't just the
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cutting-edge technology, but the chance to work alongside domain experts who
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can accelerate my growth as an engineer and developer. Whether working with
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sensor fusion or biomedical sensing, as a sponge eager to learn, AFRL is
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exactly where I need to be.
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\end{document} |