Once Senior Angel Garcia’s fifth-grade science teacher, Tyler Porter, introduced him to a computer, his life changed. Watching Porter show off the computer to his class sparked a sense of curiosity inside Garcia, which changed his life for the next ten years.

“Ever since that day, I’ve taken multiple classes on computer science, read textbooks about it, old computer stuff and new computer stuff, and studied new methods of computer science,” Garcia said.

Garcia said that two years ago—when the quantum chip was discovered—it was a game-changer.

“They find the exact answer you’re looking for,” Garcia said. “Easily, by the atoms in your body, in milliseconds they can [find] a specific medicine based off all the allergies you have. In the blink of an eye, it solves so many things and runs so many programs. It can run a whole building by itself.”

With all of the experience Garcia has and the inventions contributed to it, Garcia finally established a goal.

“That made me realize 100% I want to study and pursue a career in computer engineering,” Garcia said. “I’ve been studying for so long now that there’s no point in turning back. I’m so passionate about working on this type of stuff because it helps many people.”

His passion has led him to become a helping hand.

“I really wanted him to talk more about it because I also like computers, but he’s quiet,” senior Sydney Shepherd said. “He also likes to listen and learn from other people. If anyone has a problem, he will want to help.”

Once, art teacher Baryn Shepherd had some difficulties with her computer, and Garcia was willing to assist.

“One time, I got a little upset, and I closed my computer too quickly, and apparently put all of my documents across my desktop versus in the folders,” Baryn Shepherd said. “I was almost in tears because it was going to take me forever to put them back in all these folders. But then he was like, ‘No, mom, I got you.’ He sat there, and in 3 or 4 keystrokes, he had everything in their folders.”

His knowledge goes beyond just keyboard commands. Garcia is taking two computer science classes this year, learning computer languages like Java and Python. Python is a computer programming language that lets you create websites and software more effectively, according to Python.org.

“When he showed me his work for Python, that’s a new level of language right there,” Sydney Shepherd said. “If you could get a picture of him while he’s doing it, it looks like he’s hacking something. He takes a lot of classes for coding, and sometimes he tries to drag me into it.”

While Garcia may seem like a pro now, everyone starts somewhere.

“My first build took me about a week because it didn’t want to boot up the first couple times,” Garcia said. “Now, if you give me all of the parts, I could probably build you one in under an hour.”

Garcia exercises his creativity by visiting junkyards to find specific parts for his projects, or sometimes even getting lucky and turning old things into new ones.

“Schools and old office buildings will just throw away their old computers,” Garcia said. “I find it really fun just to keep those office computers and soup them up to computers that will work, start running programs, and then sell them off to people.”

Garcia literally thinks outside the box, or in some cases, inside the box.

“On April Fools Day, to torment my dad, I had taken his computer completely apart, got an old cereal box, taped all the parts in the cereal box, cut it open, and built his computer inside a cereal box,” Garcia said.

For others wanting to start building computers, Garcia has some advice for them.

“Always have a good work environment,” Garcia said. “A clean space, make sure you’re grounded, and always double-check everything and triple-check it. Also, have patience. Just don’t give up, even if it doesn’t turn on, you just have to keep trying, unplugging [and] do more research.