Sophomore Eileen Duong focuses intensely on writing her code, preparing herself for the competition.
Duong, the software captain of the robotics team, is a part of the FIRST Tech Challenge, a game in which teams design, build and program robots. She is in charge of finalizing and editing codes before each competition.
Duong and Sophomore Wesley Chou are responsible for teaching fellow software members how to program robots at the start of each season.
Duong found her interest in computer coding when she was playing a PC game in fourth grade and accidentally pressed the F12 button, a key on the computer that can change the website’s name, color and where everything is located. After that incident, Duong increased her knowledge of computer coding programming by practicing.
“To me, coding is an art form,” Duong said. “You have set guidelines, and then you are capable of doing whatever you want with your code. You can script, develop, design and even hack.”
Since then, Duong has volunteered at numerous places such as TCSF’s robotics class, where she taught students basic coding on robots that the students can program directly on.
In the future, Duong hopes to be a part of a summer immersion program called Girls Who Code, a nonprofit organization which aims to support and increase the number of women in the field of computer science. However, her aspirations do not come without obstacles.
Duong’s experience with coding has been challenging but with practice and patience, she has learned in the process to not give in and continue with trial and error.
“Overall, coding has been a pretty good experience,” Duong said. “It’s a constant learning experience because of regular software updates and a lot of trial and error, but it’s the challenging aspect of it that intrigues and frustrates me the most.”