Journey into Technology
Phase 1 (2017-2020)
My introduction into technology isn’t an interesting one. I merely found computers fascinating and from a certain point on, I started playing around with different features on my computers. For these first three years, I didn’t progress much. Most of this time was spent learning applications such as Google Slides and Google Docs, as that was the extent of my knowledge. The closest I came to coding in this time was Scratch, though I only did it for a short period of time during the 3rd grade.
Phase 2 (2020-2021)
In phase 1, something that I didn’t mention was in that time I heard of a group called CyberAegis who competed in a national competition called CyberPatriot. They just so happened to be consistent national champions that were made of students in Oak Valley, Design39, and Del Norte. At that time, I kept it in mind but couldn’t get into the group due to still being in elementary school. Once I got into 6th grade, I signed up for the group. CyberAegis has a process in which new students must go through what they call the ‘Farm League.’ Here, the basics of the competition is laid out, and once such information is shared, we are given virtual images to secure. All of this is meant to prepare us for the Tryouts where around half of the students are selected to join the actual group. Well, to put it bluntly, I didn’t didn’t get as my scores were less than impressive. At that time, I didn’t put in much work and thought I could get into the group without trying. Well I was proven wrong and would have to wait a year till I could get another chance.
A year later, in 2021, I was given another opportunity. This time, I made sure to make use of such. Barely, and I mean just barely, I made it on the team. This, right here, was a turning point not only in terms of my path in technology, but the path of my life. If I were to choose any defining moment in my life, this would be it.
Phase 3 (2022-Present)
Phase 3 is where the investments of the past paid its long awaited interest. Now that I was on the team, the path forward was much more clear. However, equally so, things became even more confusing than before. I was being introduced and taught material so foreign and so inherently difficult, nothing I had ever seen before, it was hard to keep up. And so, the grind commenced. Many hours a day I invested in this summer, trying to get my head around all the different material. Only a few months from this point, the ICC (In-Class Competition) would commence, which would prove vital in the team I’d end up getting on. Based on ICC scores, leaders of teams choose who they would invite onto their team. The higher the score, the better. And so, as a windows main, I had to excel in Windows if I had any chance of getting on a team capable of going to the nationals finals of CyberPatriot.
And so, the day came. Once again, just like the Farm League, I would be tested on all the work that came before, and to see if it was truly enough. The day came, and the image that were given to secure is the hardest image I’ve ever gotten. Harder than even the actual images in the real competition. Schools across the board were low. 45/100 was the max score given. I could only hope my performance was enough.
Phase 3.25 (My Team)
1 Day Later… I got a message in discord, by a leader of one of the best teams in Oak Valley. I was thrilled! My ICC scores for windows was one of the best in my school. I messaged back, “I’d love to join, but I’d like to wait to see if any other options become available.” They responded saying that I would have to find out soon or else they’d have to find someone else. At that time, I was messaged by another leader in Oak Valley of a very good team as well. And so, now I had two different teams to choose from, that were both exceptionally talented. Only one of these teams could make it to the Nationals, as by the rules, and so these teams in the end would fight for such a spot, and it would likely be very very close… Who’d I end up choosing? Well, I chose the second option, lead by Mihir Bapat, the captain of the group. He was quite convincing why I should join him instead of the other team, and I made the very hard decision of choosing his team rather than the other, a decision that would be decisive later on.
To recap, I just made it on the Farm League and only a few months later, I was selected onto one of the best teams in my school. It was very exciting but equally stressful. The level of responsibility had risen tenfold, and soon we would be competing in the actual competition, where nothing but exceptional performance would guarantee our success.
My Team:
- Networking: Jacob Wu
- Linux: Dhyan Soni & Aditya Katre
- Windows: Mihir Bapat, Kanhay Patil, & Xavier Thompson
Phase 3.5 (Competition Time)
There was only about 2 weeks from the moment the teams were assembled to the date in which the first round would be of occurrence. So in this fact, our team had to organize quickly and efficiently in order to combine our resources for the most sound strategy to approach the coming round.
2 weeks later…
First day of the competition. It’d be the second time I’d see my teammates in person. Looking back now, despite our efforts, we were still quite disorganized and not at our best performance. Alas, it was a new year, and also my first round in the actual competition so such is understandable. The question is, would it be enough? Would our knowledge suffice for the first round? Well, put simply, yes. Yes it was enough. CyberPatriot, at that time, had a time limit of 6 hours to secure your images. Every time you secure something that is being scored, you get points, and they tell you out of this many points how much you have so far. Only at 5 hours and 50 minutes did we get 100/100. Right one the edge we were, but we did it. And so, round 2 came, the state round, and then the semifinals.
The semifinals was what counted the most. It would be the scores on this round which would decide who would and wouldn’t make it to the national finals. Something that hasn’t been mentioned but is important to note, is that we weren’t the top performing team for middle school. Design39 had the best team, full of individuals who had once the national finals before. So in that sense, they were guaranteed to go to the nationals. That left two other spots, one of them that would certainly be for another team called “The Other Half.” That means there was one spot left, which was the case to begin with. Besides the two teams mentioned, there would be really no other team than Oak Valley to make it to the nationals. But Oak Valley had multiple teams, and only one could make it through. This meant, our rivals were CyberAegis Astra. A bit of context before we move on. All teams choose names to represent them. Our team name was CyberAegis Aeris, Design39 was named CyberAegis Vitalis, and our rivals to make it to the nationals were CyberAegis Astra, the next best team in Oak Valley. And yes, if you have noticed, it often ends up as CyberAegis vs CyberAegis.
The work we did through the months to lead up to this would have to be enough, or we’d be left empty-handed from all that we had done to get where we were in the first place. And so the day came. Tensions were high, it was all or nothing now. And so, we got to work, to do what had practiced for months. Our final score was unknown. The networking portion had to be manually graded, so till then we wouldn’t know our full score. Our CCS (Windows & Linux combined) was 128, CyberVitalis had a CCS score of 162, the OtherHalf had the second highest CCS score (numbers currently unknown), and our main competitors, CyberAegis Astra, had a CCS score of 119. An 8 point difference between us and them. So, everything depended on the scores we got for networking, which would be released a week for the day.
Then finally the day came. The most momentous of moments! Did we or did we not make it to the coveted nationals finals? … WE DID! We had proved triumphant in our efforts and earned a path straight to Washington DC for the finales. The final score between us and CyberAegis Astra was 147.14 to 141.57. A minimal difference. If they were to have found 1 or 2 more vulnerabilities than us, it would’ve been them at nationals, and yet, it was us. We had done it.