<p>Hey guys, I am a 2010er heading out to Stanford tomorrow ... just remembered about this board. I thought some of you might be curious about essays (I know I was!) so here is my long essay (i did the picture one). I don't think it was that great but I worked pretty hard on it and read it over like a billion times before sending it! </p>
<p>Essay 11a
I have never been to exotic lands. I’ve never slept alone in the wilderness, never saved a poor village from starvation, never stopped a terrorist bomb ala James Bond. My life is not very interesting. I spent most of my summer in sleepy suburban Vacaville, launching garbage into the atmosphere.</p>
<p>It’s hard to explain why I love shooting off 2-liter bottles filled with water. It’s not like robotics where, after weeks of design and hard work, I’ve finally gotten some algorithm to run, or a gearbox to function. Watching garbage turn into a rocket is a more spontaneous feeling.
I spent many sunny summer afternoons out in the park with my neighbors (4th graders) launching rockets. They would beg me: “Can I … Please…can I pull the string?” They ran great distances at very high speeds to retrieve the rocket, re-fill it with water and bring it back to me. Their enthusiasm reminded me of something, and gave me an idea. </p>
<p>In 5th grade, my class had made bottle rockets. I built a lifting body rocket, which could glide down. Instead of wings, which slow down rockets, it had a specially designed body that generated lift. I still remember the day I saw it come gliding back down. The feeling was amazing, to see that something you theorized could come true, that it was possible for a rocket to glide, that you had the power to create something unheard of. It was a new insight, and it all started with rockets. I owed my passion for creating things to rocketry. </p>
<p>Unfortunately our local school lacked fun science programs. As I walked back from the park that day I had an idea: I could teach how to build rockets. I put on a dress shirt and headed towards school, the students didn’t buy the teacher look but paid attention. The kids learned much better in context. I watched my students busily building rockets, discussing how they could utilize various pieces of recyclable waste to protect their “Eggstronauts” from the horrors of space. It reminded me of my own 5th grade days.</p>
<p>2 weeks later it was launch day. I placed the cardboard, tape and Styrofoam creation on to the launch pad. “Put it up to 60 PSI!”, yelled one of the kids. I grinned and continued pumping. Parents stood along the sidelines, cameras ready, waiting, wanting to see if their child’s rocket could take the Eggstronaut to outer space (and back). The kids clenched their fists in anticipation. The countdown began, “3…2…1…Blastoff!” I pulled the string.
The rocket fell to the ground, water spewed from the side of the cork as well as the inside of the air hose. It limped near the ground slowly leaking air, a poor dying creature. Examining the hose, there was a leak. I saw the parents waiting; I didn’t even want to look at the students. I ran home and got some tape; but still the hose hissed. Hoping (and praying) for the best I yanked the string anyways. Cheers erupted. Cameras flashed. In an explosion of water and mud a rocket finally took to the air.
8 launches later, the day ended. Mr.Iyer, the principal, thanked me. A parent walked up to me and thanked me, shook my hand. More parents thanked me; a student thanked me. That’s when I realized summer was ending. I was still in boring old Vacaville. I hadn’t gone to some 3rd world country or cool places with equally cool names like Mauritania or Nicaragua. A student asked if I had seen how his rocket spiraled like he had predicted, and I somehow lost track of that thought. </p>
<p>Summer is now over. I never made it to Mauritania. I didn’t save humanity or even cure cancer. But launching garbage into the atmosphere gave me one last idea. I started a team to enter a national rocketry contest. The rocket won’t be made of garbage; it will have onboard avionics, sensors and multiple stages. It may be fiberglass instead of plastic, but one thing is for sure: it’ll still take flight over the same sunny suburban Vacaville skies.</p>