![“[Building nerf blasters] became this outlet of creativity for me that hasn't been matched by anything else. The process [of] making a build complete to your desire is such a painstakingly difficult process, but I've had to learn from [the skills needed from] soldering to proper painting. There's so many different options for everything, if you think about it, it exists. The best part is [that] if it doesn't exist, you can build it yourself," Ishaan Parate said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/DSC_8149-900x604.jpg)
![“When I came into high school, I was ready to be a follower. But DECA was a game changer for me. It helped me overcome my fear of public speaking, and it's played such a major role in who I've become today. To be able to successfully lead a chapter of 150 students, an officer team and be one of the upperclassmen I once really admired is something I'm [really] proud of,” Anvitha Tummala ('21) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screen-Shot-2021-07-25-at-9.50.05-AM-900x594.png)
![“I think getting up in the morning and having a sense of purpose [is exciting]. I think without a certain amount of drive, life is kind of obsolete and mundane, and I think having that every single day is what makes each day unique and kind of makes life exciting,” Neymika Jain (12) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Screen-Shot-2017-06-03-at-4.54.16-PM.png)
![“My slogan is ‘slow feet, don’t eat, and I’m hungry.’ You need to run fast to get where you are–you aren't going to get those championships if you aren't fast,” Angel Cervantes (12) said. “I want to do well in school on my tests and in track and win championships for my team. I live by that, [and] I can do that anywhere: in the classroom or on the field.”](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DSC5146-900x601.jpg)
![“[Volleyball has] taught me how to fall correctly, and another thing it taught is that you don’t have to be the best at something to be good at it. If you just hit the ball in a smart way, then it still scores points and you’re good at it. You could be a background player and still make a much bigger impact on the team than you would think,” Anya Gert (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AnnaGert_JinTuan_HoHPhotoEdited-600x900.jpeg)
![“I'm not nearly there yet, but [my confidence has] definitely been getting better since I was pretty shy and timid coming into Harker my freshman year. I know that there's a lot of people that are really confident in what they do, and I really admire them. Everyone's so driven and that has really pushed me to kind of try to find my own place in high school and be more confident,” Alyssa Huang (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AlyssaHuang_EmilyChen_HoHPhoto-900x749.jpeg)
Davidson Fellows scholarship program celebrates upper school student’s accomplishments
![Davidson Institute Co-Founder Bob Davidson congratulates Arjun
Barrett (12) on receiving a Davidson Fellows award at the MIT campus on Sept. 10. “It's less about the fact that it's an award and more about the validation that [my project] is actually meaningful and has contributed in some small way to some field of technology,” Arjun said. “And that's something that I really strive to do just in general. So that's kind of why I find it super rewarding.”](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/IMG-0564-2-900x599.jpg)
Provided by Arjun Barrett
Davidson Institute Co-Founder Bob Davidson congratulates Arjun Barrett (12) on receiving a Davidson Fellows award at the MIT campus on Sept. 10. “It’s less about the fact that it’s an award and more about the validation that [my project] is actually meaningful and has contributed in some small way to some field of technology,” Arjun said. “And that’s something that I really strive to do just in general. So that’s kind of why I find it super rewarding.”
The Davidson Institute held its annual Davidson Fellows ceremony honoring the technical works of students, including Harker upper school student Arjun Barrett (12), at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus on Sept. 9 and Sept. 10.
The scholarship program awarded $10,000, $25,000 and $50,000 prizes to high-achieving students who have completed a significant piece of work in categories ranging from STEM to literature to music.
Davidson Institute Co-Founder Bob Davidson established the nonprofit Davidson Institute for Talent Development in 2000 with hopes to bring recognition and opportunities to gifted students who may be overlooked to make a positive difference in the world.
“We both mutually agreed that we would support a portion of the students and young people in the U.S. that were not being served because people generally thought, ‘Oh, they’re smart, they’re going to be fine,’” Davidson said.
Deemed one of the most prestigious undergraduate scholarships by Forbes, the institute aims to “recognize, nurture and support profoundly intelligent young people and to provide opportunities for them to develop their talents to make a positive difference.” Winners of the Davidson Fellows have frequently included Harker students in the past, with alumni winners on record including Cynthia Chen (‘20), Natasha Maniar (’19), Amy Jin (’18), Rajiv Movva (’18), Rishab Gargeya (’17), Vineet Kosaraju (’16) and Yi Sun (’06).
This year, the institute named Arjun a Davidson Fellow and awarded him a $10k scholarship for his project FFlate, an open-source software package that enables websites to process and manipulate ZIP archives, PDFs and other compressed file formats faster than ever before.
He started the project the summer after his freshman year, inspired by the video game Geometry Dash. After three to four weeks, Arjun developed the initial version which he has been maintaining and updating for the past two years.
“I initially created this project to add support for a level format within Geometry Dash,” Arjun said. “To do that I needed a library that would decompress data, but the existing alternatives were very slow and not very useful. So, I just created my own. And when I realized it was useful for more than just Geometry Dash, I made it open source.”
With over 70 million downloads on GitHub, FFlate has been used by companies including NASA, Microsoft and Google. Hospitals and educational sites also use the software to access medical data and provide tutorials, increasing internet speed and accessibility for those in developing regions. Arjun reflects on his project with feelings of fulfillment seeing the effects it has had on different communities.
“It’s less about the fact that it’s an award and more about the validation that [my project] is actually meaningful and has contributed in some small way to some field of technology,” Arjun said. “And that’s something that I really strive to do just in general. So that’s kind of why I find it super rewarding.”
Additional reporting by Arjun Barrett.
Ariana Goetting (12) is the co-editor-in-chief of the Winged Post, and this is her fourth year on staff. This year, Ariana looks forward to designing creative...