Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1493016
REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2023 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE I I-CONNECT007 107 hands. Plus, we're here to learn to solder for our Design Thinking competitions. We com- pete in multiple competitions with basic ideas to help with problems, such as homelessness, health care, etc. We have a couple of soldering stations donated by IPC at our school. Every year the seniors come and learn here, then we go back and compete for titles, money, etc. Did you have any background knowledge of engineering prior to this point? Only coding and that's about it, but the sol- dering thing is really fun. On a scale of one to 10, how good do you think you did with the soldering? Honestly, a solid eight or nine—only because I didn't have to ask a couple of circuit board questions. But with the soldering part, my light [completed circuit] lit up on the first track. What do you think of the event so far? Is it good, bad, or fun? I really like it, especially since it's almost like a group exercise, too. People help people and it's hands-on, which is always really cool, not like a video. What do you think about soldering? I actually really like it. My dad's a construc- tion worker, so I used to talk to him about this, but I didn't actually get it until now. It's a really cool engineering aspect because it's both mental and physical, instead of coding. Like I said earlier, it's easier to see where you went wrong than on a computer. You mentioned coding earlier. What projects have you worked on or what languages? I did Python my sophomore year and then Java my junior year. I took AP Computer Science, and learned to code hangman, a little text to speech, an app to fill in the blanks, and then obviously troubleshooting to learn code itself. S&T Enjoy this video by Cardin Nguyen about the STEM Outreach Event.