IMPACT: Mission Possible was my first serious science project I worked on. I had entered the science fair in elementary school and fooled around with little hobbies, but these were noting compared to the magnitude of time and effort I put into "The Mission". I literally spent hundreds of hours on each iteration of the project. The objective of the mission was the build a Rube Goldberg like device that would complete a very simple task in as many steps as possible. The more steps it successfully completed, the more points you would receive. As I created a new device each year, the project taught me many lessons that I will never forget. It gave me a solid foundation to build my "hard skills" upon; it taught me creative problem solving, engineering principles and time management. The mission also gave me a healthy dose of humility. I learned the definition of "Murphy's Law" when my device failed due to a trivial problem at every state level competition. I will always have fond memories of the Mission, and all that it taught me.

Former Caption: I've always been a fan of technology, but I aside from putzing around at home I'd never built anything substantial. When I discovered Mission Possible, that all changed. Since then I've built 5, and spend a measurable fraction of my life in my basement (no, I'm not crazy...yet). There's nothing quite like pounding coffee at 4AM in the morning "perfecting" the machine before the big day. Then, no matter how many times its worked in the past, something stupid always goes wrong in front of the judges. Gotta Love It!