junior program summer site : conversations : second session



	Hotaka from Japan (7/27) Hotaka is building extreme amusement park rides in his Lego engineering class, "Thrill Ride," and is breaking secret codes left and right in his cryptology class, "Mission: Codebreaker." According to Hotaka, if Explo was a dessert, it would be Willy Wonka's Everlasting Gobstoppers. What did you do yesterday? Yesterday I went on a trip to the science museum. We saw this skeleton of a triceratops. It was pretty cool. I bought some souvenirs, of course. The IMAX movie we saw was pretty cool, too. It was called "Deep Sea." It was basically about the life under water and how all the lives are connected to each other. It was really cool. There were also a bunch of model planes hanging from the ceiling and a bunch of cool exhibits at the museum, too. There was another really cool exhibit about how some gears can generate an electrical current. They used two types of gears and one was covered with electrical wires. The other had a sensor on it, which showed how much electricity the gears made. Those sound really cool. What classes are you taking? I take “Thrill Ride,” which is a Lego engineering course, and “Mission: Codebreaker,” which is about cryptology. My workshops are archery and murder mystery. What are you doing in cryptology? We just learn to break codes. We haven't been on a mission yet, but lately we've been learning about different codes we might use. Some of them are text codes, some of them I don't even remember. There are abbreviations and other things like that. My teacher, Maggie, said that we're going to start a mission and in the last days of the session, we're actually going to use some staff members as part of the mission. We're going to have to break a bunch of codes to save them. That's wild! And what are you doing in “Thrill Ride”? We make things that you might find in an amusement park. I made a kind of ride that goes around in a circle. We get to use Lego motors to move things around. My ride turned out to be more like a fan, though, than like any type of ride. I also tried to make a car, but it turned out to be more like a submarine. I don't know how that happened, but the wheels just moved like submarine propellors. What does the word “Explo” mean to you? “Explo” just means to explore the world and what people do. Like, for my class “Mission: Codebreaker,” detectives might have to break codes sometimes to solve crimes. “Explo” probably stands for doing all of the things you might do at school or at home, but really simulating what real life is like and doing things. At this Program, there really is a lot of freedom. You can really explore the world, just by staying on this campus. Tell me a little bit about your experience as a first-year, residential, international student. I was pretty nervous at first, because I didn't know what my roommate would be like, and I never stayed away from home for six weeks before. It was a pretty unnerving experience coming here and saying bye to my dad when he dropped me off at Logan Airport. But I started to get to know the kids, and Explo is really the kind of place that doesn't want kids to separate people because they're different or to bully or to exclude people. I started to realize that, on my second day, when I met my teachers and got to know my roommate and my hall. Right now, in second session, it was exciting to meet the new students, but it was also hard to say goodbye to my friends from first session. If you had a friend who was thinking about coming to Explo, what would you tell them? I would tell them that even though you might get homesick during the first week, this place is really awesome. I would really recommend it. You get more freedom, and the people here just treat you like you've known them for a long time. Everything at Explo really includes everyone. They make everything fair. If Explo was a type of dessert, what would it be and why? A few years ago, I saw the movie “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and I think Explo would be the “Everlasting Gobstoppers.” You can keep them in your mouth forever and they always taste good. It would be like that, because you can always find fun at Explo. more conversations > first session \| second session