Walking down the aisle at Toys R Us, I noticed a Rubik’s cube sitting on the edge of a shelf. The minute puzzle’s simple yet complex nature captivated me. After spending hours watching a YouTube tutorial, I managed to orient the cube back to its original position. However, my thirst for knowledge wasn’t quenched there. I had to know more about this cube. I grabbed the Philips head screwdriver on my desk and pried the cube open until I was able to get it down to its core and twenty basic parts.
An idea then occurred to me: Could I make a larger version of this puzzle? I was determined to create another Rubik’s cube with a different dimension. Day after day I worked in the garage using my dad’s tools to modify my 3x3x3 Rubik’s cube into a 3x3x4. When I finally finished my project, my curiosity was satiated as I fully understood how the puzzle worked mechanically. The idea of being able to break down something so complex into smaller parts fascinated me.
While surfing on the web, I stumbled upon a video game called StarCraft. As I continued to explore the game, my curiosity for the game grew. As the days went by, I would wonder about how such a complicated virtual world was created. To my disappointment I couldn’t simply take apart this object with a screwdriver like I did with my Rubik’s cube. I realized that my new tool for breaking this game apart was no longer a screwdriver; it was coding. To equip myself with this tool, I decided to take a computer science course.
Throughout the course, my fascination for the world of computer science kept growing. The concept that a computer will do infinitely anything it is commanded without hesitation interested me. The only thing that can limit you in this virtual world is yourself. My class worked on a project to create a Tetris game.
A project that took only a week to physically finish took more than two weeks to mentally. Immediately after I finished the project, I took the Java coding knowledge I gained and attempted to create my own mini-game. Throughout the entire process, my excitement grew more and more as I longed to see the final product. When I finally created a small first-person shooter game, I was overfilled with excitement as I had created my own virtual world.
No matter how complex something may seem it can be broken down into simpler parts. A Rubik’s cube with 40,320 permutations can be taken apart with a simple screwdriver; similarly, a multimillion-dollar video game can be broken down with words in code form. Regardless of the task in hand, the basic principle remains the same: with the right tool, anything can be broken down and understood. Once I’m able to understand the task fully, my curiosity and ambition drive me to create something more advanced. Whether if it’s a Rubik’s cube or another intellectual pursuit, I can break down the situation once I find the tool and create a solution off of my newfound knowledge.
