I'm 16, and a junior in the IB Program at Westwood High School. I was introduced to modeling and programming by my dad, when I started playing with Scratch in elementary school. My dad convinced me that I would deepen my understanding of any concept by progressing through: (a) Read about it, (b) Solve hands-on problems, (c) Teach someone, and (d) Build a Model, Make It Run! Smalltalk and the book "Squeak: Learn Programming with Robots" started me with first-class functions before I knew what the term meant. In my AP/Java course I programmed models of polynomials that could be evaluated and differentiated. My Arduino solar-tracker, and subsequent Arduino-based Marine ROV at MIT's OEX program, connected to the "physical world".

Over the last many months, I have been working on PySTEMM -- A K-12 STEM Learning Tool for Exploring and Building Executable Concept Models. The project goals are simple but ambitious: build a proof of concept of using Python to build executable concept models in a way that could be effective for K-12 STEM learning.

If my submission is accepted, I would attend with one of my parents. I have their permission to make this submission.