Please be very harsh when editing. Thank you very much!!!
Prompt: Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?
It was a damp, poorly lit room; the walls were lined with TVs with clusters of people huddled around them. I maneuvered my way to the front of the room, absorbing the environment around me. I was drifting between gut- wrenching nervousness and heart-racing excitement. I had no idea this moment would be forever engrained in my mind.
My story starts in the summer of 2009, browsing the Internet on a lazy afternoon, not having any idea that the next link I clicked would change my life forever. The website was a forum on modifying gaming consoles; I had experience with electronics as I ran a repair service, but what I saw on this website was nothing like I had ever new. The page detailed various projects including a home gaming console converted into a portable system. I experienced a feeling unlike any other. The challenge that stood before me was incredible; at that exact moment, I lifted the GameCube from my bedside and vowed to create the world's smallest portable GameCube.
I extensively researched topics I never knew existed, learned to solder the tiniest joints, feeling like I won the lottery when the liquid solder finally bonded the wires after 4 hours of burns. After months of dedication to the project, I saw my custom-built regulation system read 1.19V. It had sufficient voltage to power the GameCube motherboard. I carefully maneuvered the two pieces together as though I was playing the last level of Tetris and one wrong move would ruin everything. It slowly sparked to life reading, "Please insert a disc." With what seemed like a permanent smile on my face, I ran to my room looking for a childhood game to test and dug up Smash Brothers Melee, not knowing that once again my life was due for change.
Smash Bros. Melee is a competitive fighting game that features several Nintendo characters. It amazes me to this day how many factors surround the competitive gameplay and how challenging those factors are to master. My own competitive outlook encouraged me to delve deeper- understanding the game's code. By learning the game at it's very core, I was able to learn how to give myself tools to practice with, such as developing artificial intelligence to make computers to mimic human tournament play. However, while this was initially about the game, my adventure through the it revealed a new world; I began to modify several games, even going so far as to create one for a school project. Playing Melee opened my eyes to the world of computer science.
I consider myself extremely lucky to have stumbled upon two things that fuel my passion. Competing in Melee and pursuing a portable GameCube project is credited with all of the excitement and determination I have regarding the coding and hardware aspects of the engineering industry. My dream is to attain a degree in electrical engineering and find a career that uses and expands my current skill set. As I look back at the past few years, it is incredible how a simple game and a stumbled-upon website changed my life forever.
