About Me
Hello and welcome to my website! My name is Nevin Thinagar, and
I am currently a Junior at the Massachusetts Academy of Math and
Science. In this website, I want to introduce you to who I am through
the lenses of education, recreation and invention. I was born in
September 2005 into a family of first-generation immigrants from
India. This connection to my heritage is something that has always
been a central part of my life. My parents have always emphasized to
me and my sister, that the only way to get something done is through
hard work, a trait emphasized through their tough path to the US. I
never take their hard work for granted and use it as motivation for me
to do my best each day. Another one of my biggest inspirations is my
sister, while she is younger than me, she never fails to surprise me
with her resilience and grit to get things done. It may be due to a
little bit of sibling rivalry but seeing her succeed makes me want to
do so as well.
Hobbies
There are a lot of things I love to do in my free time, but one of my
favorites must be rock climbing. I started rock climbing during a
summer camp when I was 10. Ever since then, I was hooked! I climb at Central
Rock Gym in Worcester and participate in an organized team there.
Rock climbing is really the first sport I enjoyed doing, after all,
it’s probably the only sport where hanging upside down off a wall is
considered normal. Climbing has also been a way for me to relax, even
though it is physically hard, it lets me relax my brain from a hard
day of learning to focus on just the movements on the wall. Outside of
rock climbing, one of my more STEM related activities is building
rockets! I was the lead of the electronics and sensing team on my High
School’s rocketry club and have continued to develop my Arduino-based
flight computer though the summer. I am hoping to launch the flight
computer on a test flight later this year to create a truly low-cost
and highly modular system for amateur rocketry enthusiasts.
Food and Travel
I love traveling, and, as you will see all over my website, I
have been lucky to go to many places. In my travels, I have been lucky
to visit locations in all the hemispheres of the world, from the
chilly glaciers of Iceland to the scorching deserts of Dubai. To me,
the best part of traveling, is not the places, but the people.
Traveling around the world exposes you to many different cultures and
views of the world. I have learned more by talking to people from
different places than I have in all my years of school. It may be said
that a picture is worth a thousand words, but to me, a conversation is
worth thousands more.
Another bonus of travelling is the food! I love sampling local cuisine
from all the places I visit. I have discovered some of my favorite
foods while traveling and have a slowly growing list of the best
restaurants for each type of cuisine. But I don’t just eat other
people’s food, I also love cooking my own recipes. I love watching
cooking videos on YouTube and have put together a playlist of recipes that I want to make (it’s
over 200 videos long!) and I slowly am getting through them each time
my family has guests over. Hopefully, by the time college rolls
around, I will be a good enough cook that I can save money by making
my own delicious food!
Volunteering
Robotics Volunteering
The main community service that I participated in over the
past year was mentoring the robotics team "The Inventors of Agami".
When I was in 5th grade, I was also part of an FLL team, and it was
one of the most rewarding experiences that I have ever been a part
of. One of the things that made it so much fun was my mentor. So,
when I was offered the chance to mentor a team of first year FLL
students, I jumped on the opportunity. This experience has taught me
a lot about taking complicated topics and finding ways to explain
them to younger students and keeping students under control while
still allowing them to learn on their own. Overall, I would say that
mentoring a team has been even more rewarding than being a part of
one!
