The Start of an Exciting Trip by Warrin John

Hey everyone! My name is Warrin John, and I am a student at the Downingtown STEM Academy. I joined TRIP as I saw it as a great opportunity to conduct hypothesis-driven research through a real laboratory environment. When I had first heard about TRIP through one of my friends, I knew right away that no matter what I HAD to be a part of this. Science has always been an interest to me, especially how it connects to improving people's lives, and I felt that TRIP was the perfect place to further explore that passion of mine. Also, my current favorite subject in school is Biology, so looking deeper into this particular area is super exciting. So far, I’m looking forward to having a fun experience with many like-minded individuals who share similar passions!

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So, who am I? I am 17 years old and am particularly interested in healthcare and dermatology. One of my favorite things to do is eating and trying new foods. Currently my favorite food is two sliders and fries from Asads Hot Chicken (all extra hot) and a chocolate milkshake. Aside from eating, my favorite things to do in my free time are go to the gym or watch a horror movie with my little brother. I like to go to the gym because I am always finding ways to improve as a person both physically and mentally. I find it very rewarding to put myself through a challenge of consistency and see my progress overtime. As for watching horror movies, my favorite one right now has to be the platform because it shows a completely dystopian yet realistic depiction of a fictional prison system that causes people to completely change and infringe their sanity. I am also involved in a wide variety of school clubs and extracurricular activities that take up most of my free time. As far as school clubs, my favorites are DECA and HOSA as I have qualified for the international conferences in both and got to travel to different states because of them. Some extracurriculars I partake in outside of school include volunteering as I help out at the Phoenixville Tower health hospital every week and I am a part of SEWA which is a youth-lead hindu volunteering organization. I also work on personal projects that cater to my future career in dermatology. For example, I have worked on machine learning models for skin condition recognition and also conducted research on skin health. I also have been playing the piano ever since I was 5 years old. I love the piano because to me, it’s a calm place for me to just sit down and disconnect from everything that's going on. Also, the feeling of finally memorizing and playing a song from start to finish without flaw is the best! Lastly, my favorite animal is a dog mainly because I have the cutest dog whose name is Joy. Joy lives up to her name and brings loads of happiness and energy into my family’s life. She’s my constant reminder to embrace the little things in life—unironically, as she weighs only 15 pounds!

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My first day of TRIP was very exciting and funny. In the beginning we started with a Bingo Icebreaker where I was able to learn everyone's names and some hobbies or facts that they aligned with. I tried my best to win but unfortunately, I went on a 0-7 losing streak at the end which cost me the entire game. We then went through a Lab scavenger hunt which I found very helpful. Through this I was able to familiarize where everything was in the case, I would need it for part of my experiment. Next, the funniest part of the day was photos where we were asked to pose for what felt like hundreds of photos and we couldn't stop laughing whenever we were trying to pose. We also went over the basics of unit conversions and even practiced using micropipettes. It felt good to get a refresher on these things as I know I will be needing it throughout my entire TRIP experience. Finally, using our micropipetting skills, we ended off the day with preparing fly food for our kickoff experiment. 

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