Going into REDI Lab I did not have any even somewhat developed idea for a project. What I did have, however, was a good idea of the areas I wanted to focus on. I have always loved math and problem-solving, and more recently, I have developed a passion for computer science, physics, and engineering. I knew that I wanted to do a project that combined my passions while challenging me in these areas, and when REDI Lab started, I was eager to find out what that project could be.
I spent my first few weeks at REDI lab desperately searching for a project that would satisfy my criteria; I wanted to do something that was, challenging, related to my interests, solving a problem, and, most importantly, I wanted to do something of substance: not prototype or ideate something theoretical or philosophical. While I was so focused on wanting to get started on doing something in REDI Lab, what I unfortunately neglected at the start of REDI Lab was discovering why I wanted to do all of this.
Whenever the REDI Lab instructors asked me why I wanted to pursue the project I was thinking about, I would try to avoid the question or give an exaggerated answer that I thought would satisfy them. I kept on trying to pursue my aspirations of creating something “cool” and something that I could show for the wrong reasons: I was more focused on impressing others and proving something to myself, rather than exploring my curiosities. Additionally, not having my why figured out made what I was doing feel pointless and made me super unmotivated, leading to all my project ideas eventually feeling dull and unoriginal, causing me to have to scrap all of these ideas and spend my time researching projects that were not interesting to me.
Eventually, I landed on a project that was interesting enough, related to my academic interests, and one of my non-academic interests as well: skiing. I developed a program and outlined an AI model to theoretically predict where the skier will land on a terrain park jump as they approach it, to hopefully eventually develop a technology to use to record this data and provide feedback to the skier so they can monitor their speed and be safer in terrain parks. While I did not create anything fully developed or as impressive as I initially intended, I did learn a lot about myself and realized the importance of discovering why I want to do the things I want to do.
