Home Depot Community Improvement Grant for Ctrl-Z

Ctrl-Z is a youth robotics organization that works under FIRST. The main objective of our group is to teach high schoolers the importance of STEM and teamwork by building a robot to perform in competitions against other FIRST teams. However, Ctrl-Z is a very outreach oriented team. Much of our time is spent thinking of ways that we could better our community by spreading STEM and FIRST values.

Starting at conception, in 2011, Ctrl-Z wanted to be an impact on the community. Over the past five years that Ctrl-Z has been around, we have created multiple lower level robotics teams for younger kids. We also hold demonstrations throughout the year to spread knowledge about our team and FIRST. In these demos, we go to schools, camps, and festivals to reach a broad range of people who might be interested in what we do. Although we started with only a few demos through our first year, we now average around twenty-five demos per year. Ctrl-Z members help out with science based camps as well. We are active leaders in four summer camps around our area. This year, we have organized our very own camp, the Summer Youth Robotics Academy, (SYRA)  to debut this summer that focuses on teaching kids of minority ethnicities and lower socioeconomic class about STEM and FIRST.

Ctrl-Z members are trained to be proficient in many skills, both related to the engineering of building a robot and to the less technical side of running an organization - public speaking, business organization, etc. Because a large portion of Ctrl-Z is aimed at creating a competitive robot for the year’s competition, each student is given basic machining and building skills. We learn how to use basic power tools such as drills and jigsaws, but also larger machinery such as a band saw or chop saw. We also learn how to use Computer Aided Design to design each piece of our robot in 3-D. But because we are also very focused on outreach, each student learns how to give an elevator speech, describe what our robot does and how it works, and also basic teaching and leading skills so that we may best be involved in our community.

This year, along with SYRA, Ctrl-Z has plans to work with Habitat for Humanity to bring our mission to Mississippi. We want to spread FIRST and STEM values, but we believe that it is important to give back to the community as much as possible, and as such we plan to help Habitat for Humanity build houses for those of lower socioeconomic class who we also wish to help educate. Ctrl-Z would like the help of Home Depot in reaching this goal. With the tools and material that can be provided as well as the professionalism and skill of our team, we believe that real quality can be reached and many members of the community in Mississippi can be helped.

Hamburger Helper is on FIRE With a Great Mixtape

Easy cooking recently just got even better. With the drop of Watch The Stove, Hamburger Helper’s April fools mixtape, creating a Hamburger Helper meal became so much more entertaining.

Lefty, the Hamburger Helper mascot, has been tweeting out progress reports on the new mixtape to build up hype for the project, in the months leading up to the release. The five track mixtape quickly went viral on soundcloud, the first track, Feed the Streets, gaining 2.56 million views within five days of the release. Feed the Streets is a certified banger, a hype track that people can’t help bobbing their head to.

The project was undertaken by music students at the McNally Smith College of Music in Minnesota when General Mills reached out to the school. Toki Wright, a rapper and producer who works at McNally Smith and is the department head for the nation’s first hip-hop studies program jumped at the chance to give his students this project.

And if the lack of experience of the producers doesn’t shock you, the topics might. Hip-hop is a genre mostly full of bravado, in which the artists show off their glamorous or gangster lifestyles to show that they are better than all of their competition. Watch the Stove takes an interestingly opposite approach to hip-hop than most of the famous artists these days. Instead of showing off a rich party lifestyle, the artists of the mixtape decide to glamorize Hamburger Helper, the cheap food brand.

The last song of the mixtape, In Love With the Glove, perfectly illustrates this as there seems to be an almost sexual feeling between the girl mentioned in the song and Hamburger Helper. The hook states that “She’s in love/ with that glove.” So while this does refer to how “she” might love the meals themselves, it may also refer to her actually loving Lefty, the mascot.

Even more ridiculous are the two music videos that were created with the project. The video for Crazy features young artist Theory rapping against a mac-and-cheese backdrop while describing the ease and cheapness with which Hamburger Helper can be used. In In Love With the Glove, you can see a young, beautiful woman dancing, drinking champagne, and going on car rides with Lefty in a hilarious fashion.

What was originally meant to be a fun April Fools project turned into possibly one of the greatest marketing schemes of all time. Not only did it flawlessly promote Hamburger Helper, getting even me to consider buying some, it jump started the careers of a few young artists in one of the best ways possible. Probably the hottest mixtape of 2016, I can only hope that the Hamburger Helper group is able to whip up some more fire in whatever studio they’re cooking in.

Can Money buy happiness?

Short answer: I don't really think so. I really only say this because happiness isn't exactly a physical thing that people can buy (if people could buy happiness in a box they almost certainly would, but I guess that's what life ruining drugs are for). The thing about buying happiness, though, is that people actually do think they can buy happiness (not just in the form of drugs). People think that buying a house, a car, a computer, a smartphone, etc. etc. etc. will bring them happiness.

I consider this only superficial happiness though, due to the fact that any of these things can be changed and exchanged or taken away relatively quickly. But this is all due to today's materialistic culture. Everyone always wants more, wants what's newest, what's most flashy - just so they can show off. Take the iPhone for example. It's basically a meme at this point how everyone always has to get the newest iPhone as soon as it comes out. I don't want to be too biased, but people spending between $700-$800 on a phone that is no longer the best option every year is pretty ridiculous. The two mile long wait lines to get the newest iPhone - I mean, is it even worth it?

I don't want to imply that I'm not a part of this absurd consumerist culture - my thoughts on android being the clearly superior phone option aside. I know that I find myself browsing tech articles fairly often on what's newest and coolest. Like other people, I want what's best, and I want it because I think it will make me happier - at the very least it  will make me feel as if I'm better than the person with last year's phone. But the question is: will it really make me happier? In the short term it might. Cause everyone loves getting new things. Take the excitement of getting a package in the mail from Amazon for example.

I have this theory (that may be supported by research I saw too long ago to remember) that money and/or property can only buy happiness up to a certain point. After that point your happiness either stays the same or starts to drop off. I feel like, once you get to a certain point of wealth, more wealth just doesn't mean anything. You can already buy pretty much everything so what's the point of getting more. I guess just to fill the greed that everyone in the capitalist world has. This is why we must change to a communist economy where no one has anything to themselves. If we can get rid of greed we can start concentrating more on the real problems. Let us go forth, Comrade.

Thoughts on lying

Lying is one of those things that we, as a society, have decided is immoral. Nobody likes being deceived or mislead, but it still happens all the time. Going to a party when you tell your parents you are just hanging out with a friend or two or telling them you don’t have homework when you have two tests and a paper due, but you just want to watch T.V. Highschoolers tend to lie when they want to get away from the rigors of school and home life. They just want to relax and have fun, but in a way that their parents would disapprove of - and so they lie. I personally don’t have a problem with this type of lying. But I do think that priorities need to be set by highschoolers to do their work before they go off and party - but that’s another story.

I like to think that I can lie when I need to. But the truth is, I don’t really have a need to lie. I don’t like going to parties and especially now, in my last semester of highschool, I don’t have work I need to get done before I can do whatever I want. Even if I did want to go to a party, though, I am lucky enough to have parents that are okay with that as long as I don’t do anything stupid.

There are other types of lying too. You lie when you want to spare someone’s feelings or maybe when you want to impress someone. These are the types of lies that I respect less, especially the latter kind. It is a personal belief of mine that you should be honest about yourself to other people. Even when the truth is hurtful to someone else, it’s probably best, in the end, to tell the truth. Now, if the topic never comes up around another person, then I would say it’s fine not to tell them. But that’s more for the benefit of the person with the hurtful truth. People generally don’t want to hurt another person’s feelings, and will want to put it off as much as possible, and I am certainly no exception to that. But there comes a time and a place in which the truth must come out, or else things can get uncomfortable for both parties involved.

Lying, in some ways, is really just acting. You want to make someone believe in something that isn’t true. But unlike acting, lying is the real world. You can hurt people with it or you can spare someone with it. Either way, it’s probably best to be good at it.

How good are you at waiting for what you really want?

I have this problem. I don’t really want anything major. I have everything I might’ve wanted already, and if I really want something, it’s probably because I need it - like food. Food is a necessity to live and most living beings get a signal to eat when they are hungry. I seem to get this signal quite a lot. But for me, in my upper middle class position, food is extremely easy to come by. I can just go downstairs to the kitchen and grab whatever leftovers there are or a piece of chocolate or on some rare occasions, a fruit.

Maybe my mentality is just a little off from being able to get everything really easily. It’s easier than ever to get things you want by ordering online or going to a supermarket. The most I ever have to wait is maybe a week and a half if that’s the only way to get free shipping on Amazon. Honestly, paying for shipping is only ever worth it if you are in a position where you won’t be able to get it after a couple of days because you are leaving on a trip or something.

Even though I never had the opportunity to test my patience for getting something that I wanted, I’d probably not be as patient as I could be. I mean, if there’s something that you want super badly, then you are going to do whatever it takes to get it as soon as possible, right? If I was trying to buy something really expensive, that I didn’t have money for, I’d ask my parents for money on the condition that I pay them back at some point - although my parents would probably forget what I owed them at some point, or at least stop asking for their money back.

Other things, that don’t require money are harder to get without waiting. For example, applying to colleges. Applying to college is a long process that starts when you get into high school. Since I’d known that I wanted to go to a good college for a while, I put the work into school, and waited patiently to apply. The worst part of applying for colleges though, is really after you send in your applications. That’s when you really have to be patient. I applied to University of California schools back in November, but I won’t know if I got in until March 31. That’s way too long to wait. So I guess I’m getting some patience practice from there.

This is a bit of a rant, dont take it too seriously.

What can older people learn from your generation

In a recent discussion about social justice, history, and the values of culture, I was told “Our generation is going to be one of the most important, if not the most important generation.” This was in terms of bringing about change in the prejudices and stereotypes that people have of others in different socioeconomic class. In the past, in America, everything was done for an by old, rich, white men. To an extent this is still true, but the old white men that are in power now are soon either going to die or retire. That will allow people of a more progressive age to come forward and take charge.

People from my generation and the one directly before, are probably the first to be told, as a whole, to be accepting of all types of people. This is probably made most obvious by the bill that passed last year to allow homosexuals the right to marry. In the 90’s and early 2000’s, being gay was still something that society completely shunned or made fun of. That’s not to say that people don’t make fun of gays or bully them in school and that they are one hundred percent accepted, but the point is that in just a couple of years, there has been a huge shift in the attitudes towards them as the younger, more progressive generations became more prominent in protests and making change happen.

Now obviously not all older people are like this. Bernie Sanders is like a million years old, but is super liberal. I think everyone that I know personally who are getting up there in age are pretty liberal, but the fact of the matter is that the people in power are from a generation in which very few people held social, political, and cultural power. They are taking the mindset from back then and applying it to now. So I think that if anything, older people should learn to change their mindsets and be more open.

The rate at which social progression is coming is faster than ever before. This is indicative of people in charge becoming more open, but also that the process for the old people of the general public need to change faster - and speed isn't exactly easy for the elderly. The youth of the nation are mostly quite liberal, and ready to take up arms against anyone who wants to put someone else down because they are maybe a little different. That's all well and good, but for me it’s a bit extreme. Being politically correct is now so important that teachers can’t even put up Christmas trees in their classrooms to celebrate the holidays. “In our effort to be tolerant of everyone, we become intolerant of everything.” This is something I see more and more. Both Mr. Sutton and Mr. Butler, history teachers, have said the the 2010's is reminiscent of the 1950's in that everything is censored and everyone must be politically correct. So I guess older people will need to learn to have the correct mindset sooner and sooner. Or they could just learn how to use modern technology.

Writing 1

Do you wish you could return to a moment from your past?

If I was to go back in time, there is nothing that I would change. I have no major regrets in my life. There are little things here and there that maybe I could've done differently, but that probably wouldn’t make a difference in my life as a whole. That homework that I didn’t do really won’t affect my grade enough for anyone to notice. I’ll still have straight A’s and at this point in my second semester of my senior year of high school, grades are slightly less important anyway. That’s not to say that I’m going to just give up on my grades and let them fall so that I lose my 4.0 GPA. I’ve come this far and done so well, that it seems like it would be a waste just to end that.

Even though I like to close strong on something almost done, I can’t really say that the whole process is like that. If I don’t gain momentum on a project that I am working on, then I will have a very hard time finishing. This is sometimes why it is hard for me to finish playing through video games. Two times recently, I have started a game, but been unable to finish for the sole reason that I stopped and never came back to it. To be fair though, I had to stop because I was leaving the country. But when I returned, I never returned to playing those games, and I’m sure that I won’t, at least not anytime soon.

But that is not something that I truly regret. I mean, I did waste a couple of dollars, but I got both games on sale for a very good price. Nor would finishing either game do anything to either improve or deteriorate my life. So if I could go back to a moment in my past, it would not be to change anything for the better.

I think if I was to return to a moment from my past, it would be just to observe how I lived. The ways in which I interacted with people or how efficiently I did my work or how often I would squirm my way out of trouble. It would kind of be like a wildlife researcher following around a rare animal. Maybe I would go back and watch myself obsess over Jane Goodall and her research with the chimpanzees. That would be quite ironic, wouldn’t it? To observe someone making observations about another person’s observations.

Even though I think it would be very interesting to view my younger self with the perspective of a slightly more experienced person, there still would not be too much a reason to travel back in time. I have no life changing experiences that are of any importance nor anything so interesting that would make me want to go back to reexperience it. Except for maybe my trip to the Black Gorge in the Golan Heights of Israel.

That was the coolest thing I have done that I can remember. It was an experience of extreme hiking, where there were no paths, jumping fifteen feet into pools was necessary, and I got to rappel down waterfalls. Not to mention eating soggy sandwiches. This was not a journey for the cowardly, but one for thrill seekers and hiking fanatics.

I suppose that that hiking trip would be quite fun to relive, but I wouldn’t be terribly sad if I couldn’t do it again. So, in short, my life has very few exciting adventures worth telling, but I think it is important to be aware of the fact that I am satisfied with the way my life turned out. There isn’t anything that needs to be changed, even if I wanted to.