Hello everyone, this is Grace, and I am now in the second week of PA (Philips Academy Andover) Summer. If you’d ask me to rate it out of ten, I would give you a solid 8 right now, but that number used to be somewhere near 2. Let me explain.

I had signed up for the 5 week program of Beyond Robotics, and showed up to class completely oblivious of anything, having no clue of how to build or code a robot. The first few days, were of course, the hardest. We got split into small groups of 4 and I got put with three boys who are super good at robotics. When we were dividing the labor between the four of us, all three of them chose to build or assist with building the robot, leaving me with a huge basket, and an instruction book with 100 or so different parts of the robot to get. I thought at first that it was going to be easy because it was similar to sorting out my outfit every morning. Turned out I do not have 40 same looking tank tops with different lengths just like the amount of screw there are. After 30 minutes, I still couldn’t find anything, and was lingering in the room while the other teams have started to build. After finding out that I am a complete beginner, none of my teammates yelled at me, while teammates of my friend, who is in another group, got yelled at. This somehow just made me feel worse because my teammates cannot do anything just because I don’t know how to find the motor and wheels and spacers… I was ready to shed off my mascara 5 times that day (and if you don’t know what that means, it means bawling out my eyes).

The few days later building with my team, I became two very different people inside and outside the classroom. If you know me well enough, I’m a very extroverted person who always answers questions and is usually the one blabbering away at the lunch table with my friends. During my free time, I would stand in front of my dorm window and yell down to the people walking, asking their name and what class they are in. However, when in the robotics room, I become very introverted and my confidence decreases rapidly once I step into the maker space. It’s not that I don’t want to answer the questions, it’s that I really don’t know the answer. When I was asked if I wanted to build, I just said no because I was afraid I was going to do something wrong and let down the team, but deep down, I wanted to build as well. One of the boys in our class noticed, and when he was building, he would ask me to help him screw the screws in, or hold the robot in place so he can put in a spacer. I so grateful for that because it helped me build more confidence.

Robotics is really hard, but now it’s the second week and I’m starting to get the hang of it. I will continue to work hard to learn more about robotics and I am already proud of what I have already learned so far. Thank you so much for my parents, teachers, and friends who support me while I learn. And thank you for reading. I will do a follow up when I come back from the camp.