The final project I achieved was both a lot more difficult than what I first expected and a lot easier. In not knowing, I made many mistakes, leading to an extremely large roadmap to be taken before arriving at my finished product. On the other hand, through hindsight, the project roadmap looks exceedingly simple. At Achievers' Night, for the viewer’s sake I presented it from the back view, where all that needed to be done was to buy the needed components and write some code in. This view has its merits, allowing for a simpler explanation, but its downfalls lie mainly in the process. The idea of not knowing anything can be hard to grasp, but that is the reality when tackling a topic with little to no background. As an example, let’s say you are commissioned to build a skyscraper. You have no background in architecture, so while it is a daunting task, you think that all you need to do is draw the frame of a square pillar that goes all the way into the sky. However, there are countless flaws with your assessment. With a simple pillar, the statue will be too heavy and wind on it will cause it to buckle, and even so you have no floors— what you have designed turns out to be a large metal box. Even so, I bet you just forgot about the foundation, a critical part of the building. This is the same for many projects that were done in the Achievers' Program, from my cellular hotspot to Swaha Chakraborty’s art gallery— each one seems simple as the final project, but I have learned that the process is always a lot more complicated than it seems. Besides the amount of work that has to be done to create a finished product, another thing I have learned is the importance of mentors and experts as a whole.

While I was finishing up with the coding portion of my project, I came across one of the largest problems I had to fix. I spent hours looking over the code, testing possible points of failure when my dad managed to get in touch with one of his friends that worked in networking. For a problem that took me hours without a solution, it took my dad’s friend mere minutes to find the problem, and then the project was working. This is the reason why mentors are important, it’s one of the reasons the IDEA program requires you to select a mentor, and it is why I regret not having conversed with my mentors as much as I should have.

As for what I learned about networking, I mostly learned the basics, where vocabulary will not gloss over my head, and looking at a line of code, I should be able to discern the meaning/purpose. While I am still not able to write code for networking, being able to interpret the code is the first step, where I know what something is supposed to do. There was a really long process involved, the reading of multiple lengthy articles, and a lot of google searches to try and find what was going on, but that is a process I no longer have to go through if I were to continue learning networking.

With a project that spans over the course of a year, time management is a very important process that must be done, and it’s something I honestly failed at. In the first few months, work does get done, but it stagnates after that. The next time you work on the project is a month before it is due, and that is officially the territory of panic mode. For me, research progressed slowly, and even through my third work in progress presentation, I was behind schedule. It wasn’t till the latter half of my fourth work in progress that I really pulled my project together, having to work into the night multiple times to finish it. One of the problems I can say I made is that I didn't set aside time as a contingency, because with the number of blunders I made, I was quickly thrown off schedule. The advice I have for others who take on long projects is definitely to set time aside in case you make an error and try to stop yourself from lulling into a state of complacency. Along with making sure you stay working, the second part about time management that I learned is that it is better to work smart, instead of work hard. I spent a long time working, but a lot of the work I did ended up being a complete waste. If I had found the two sites that caused me to be able to finish my project in the first round of research, I would have finished a prototype by winter break, and I would have a finished, usable project by Achievers' Night, instead of a prototype containing a lot of wires. For the two sites that allowed me to finish my project, each one came from a singular google search, a singular google search that could have allowed me to save months of work.

Innovation and design are one facet of the Achievers’ Program, but there are many more, including presentation skills and giving feedback. For me, the presentations I had to give were quite simple because I was used to presenting, but even so, I learned a bit more about presenting, like the effect that comedy has on your presentation. As for giving feedback, while I would rate my feedback as subpar, I would say that any feedback helps, which allows me to explain my project better.

Finally, I would like to give a word of advice for future achievers and others working on similar projects. My advice is essentially a condensed version of my misgivings stated above, but even so, it can help to compact information to make it more digestible. To this I say, have a list.

• Speak to your mentors, they are here to help you

• Get in touch with professionals, you will be amazed by how fast some problems can be resolved

• Don’t stop researching until you have a definitive plan of what you are going to do

• A project may be a lot more complicated than it first seems, have a backup plan or set some time aside for a possible panic mode

• Work smart, not hard: why would you suffer for months when you could finish calmly in a matter of days

• Keep up with your goals: the panic buffer of your timeline can help with unforeseen circumstances, but it is important to use that as only a last resort, try and keep up with your goals or be swamped with work near the very end

• Pay attention to the feedback you receive, it will help you structure what you want in your presentation along with adjusting your project to make the process flow better

• Keep your project slightly open if you can, an open project means you can make adjustments that will help you finish your project

• Pick a project you are interested in, this will help you keep on progressing

• Design your presentation with a purpose in mind, this will help you get your point across, along with having a more appealing and coherent presentation

• Go ambitious, don’t be scared if someone tells you your project is very ambitious, over the course of a year, you will be able to complete it, and that means you have wonderful experiences to talk about during a presentation, even arriving at the point where you must pick and choose what to display for optimal effect

• Do not fear the end result, you will be prepared by the time the deadline comes along