Le '20 Explores Cutting Edge Technologies
Written by Eric Velasco P ’23 for the Winter 2019 issue of Indian Springs Magazine.
Dylan Le ’20 isn’t sure what he’ll do for a living after school. His education in computers is so cutting-edge Le’s eventual career path probably hasn’t even been invented yet.
After all, 3D printers weren’t around less than a decade ago. Now the 18-year-old senior plans to use one at Indian Springs School to create—layer by layer—a custom case to complete a computer keyboard he decided to build from scratch, including crafting its circuitry, just to understand what’s involved.
“I really don’t know what I will be doing in the future because I don’t know what I’ll be able to do,” says the computer sciences/math student, who, in his spare time, is creating a smart identification system and producing math-art with fractals. “Everything is moving so quickly. It’s kind of scary, trying to figure out what’s going to happen next.”
It could be related to “big data” and artificial intelligence, building on lessons learned in William Belser’s Advanced Topics class. Le and classmates have teamed to build a cluster of small computers, and dissect larger datasets into manageable workloads that each component can process separately to find a collective answer to complex questions. It’s a more efficient and speedy than a single computer.
In artificial intelligence, managing a large volume of data is needed to teach computers to “think,” say, to distinguish cats from dogs.
“The amount of data we have is growing so much, it’s outpacing our ability to process it,” says Le, who lives off U.S. 280 in Birmingham.
Le also did an independent project with Belser to build an antenna using the school’s 3D printer that extends the limited range of WiFi.
Another of Le’s side projects is creating a “smart” system to implant chips in Indian Springs student IDs to track library book checkouts, dining-hall visits and purchases, and other activities that normally are manually logged. It builds on a concept Besler’s Advanced Topics class explored.
The Indian Springs senior often takes the initiative to extend classroom lessons, such as the artistic fractal image he created at home that is based on a complex-numbers formula known as the Mandelbrot Set.
Computers have long appealed to Le, who loves solving puzzles. He has taken computer science classes every semester since ninth grade and has spent the fall semester this year concentrating on college-level advanced mathematics courses.
He says Indian Springs has provided a level of education and independent study generally not available elsewhere. “Springs is teaching me how I should think about problems, how everything I learn isn’t independent but applies to something else.”
It’s not just computers and math. Le cites the English and History departments at Springs as crucial to his intellectual development.
“Sure, I’m learning to read and write,” he says. “But I’m also learning how to communicate my ideas and articulate how I think about a problem. One thing that has really stuck with me is if I can’t explain a problem to someone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, I can’t solve that problem.”
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Phone: 205.988.3350
Indian Springs School, an independent school recognized nationally as a leader in boarding and day education for grades 8-12, serves a talented and diverse student body and offers admission to qualified students regardless of race, gender, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Located in Indian Springs, Alabama, just south of Birmingham, the school does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or sexual orientation in the administration of its educational policies, admission policies, scholarship and loan programs, or athletic and other school-administered programs.
© 2023 Indian Springs School. All Rights Reserved.
© 2023 Indian Springs School. All Rights Reserved.