Welcome to the
JUNGLE!
The journey starts
NOW
scroll down to begin!
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all” - Hellen Keller
a Letter to
YOU
Very Far Away (or not)
Somewhere on this Pale Blue Dot
Hello fellow human,
Welcome to my website! My name is Estella and welcome to my jungle! Among the trees, you will find my art projects, technical projects, writing, photography and more. I love computer science, art, and writing! I also like to play tennis, piano and I run cross country. I hope exploring this jungle will bring some joy to your day!
Begin your adventure by continuing to scroll down and read about some of the projects I've created recently and things I've done!
But wait! Before you set out on your journey, take a jug of water and a packet of biscuits. You'll need it. Legend says there are ancient treasures hidden deep within these treetops.
Enjoy the adventure,
Estella
Jungle Master
Tales from the Trail
This summer, I went on a life-changing backpacking trip along the Pacific Crest Trail (the website and the documentary). When I returned, I wanted to make something special to always remember my adventures. I hand-crafted, wrote, bound, and decorated a book containing all the amazing tales from my adventures there! It is a collection of the friendships, experiences, and challenges of the Trail! Some of my favorite parts are the bear pop-up, the crawfish model, 3D toilet, page of flowers, and campfire pop-up.
This project won the Hack Club Arcade Art Showcase Competition!
Magic Frog's Lightsaber
This is a PCB lightsaber controlled by a gyroscope and accelerometer that I designed. I created it originally for The Trail, an event organized by Hack Club. This was the first PCB I've ever designed! It took about 4 months in total to make. I got lots of help from the Hack Club community and my mentor friend Isaac.
The Paper Person
The Paper Person follows the adventures of a curious creature made of paper who wanders alone in the forest. The Paper Person spends their days collecting paper in the forest, sticking them on themselves, and absorbing the words and pictures on the paper. Their thoughts, memories, and opinions are the convergence of all the papers they collect. One night, a relentless storm sweeps through the forest. Hungry for more knowledge and answers to their burning questions, they grab an ember from a forest fire, mistaking it for paper, and nearly all of their paper is burned to ashes. What will happen next?
This piece won the Scholastic Art and Writing Regional American Voices Nominee and Gold Award 2024!
I started writing this piece during my English's teacher's summer writing workshop! My friend Bird also gave me some great feedback!
Chew on This
Chew on This is a miniature room I created from gum boxes, gum wrappers, and gum. The idea came to me one day when I was studying and chewing gum as I usually do. I just saw a pair of scissors next to me and before I knew it, I had made a tiny bed for one of the gum sticks! The idea just expanded from there. At the center of the room is the "person", a fresh unchewed stick of gum. They are in contrast to the rest of the room, where everything has been reshaped in some way. To me, the person symbolizes openness. It was really fun to experiment with a material that isn't usually used to make art!
Chew on this: sometimes the most extraordinary worlds begin with something as simple as stick of gum.
Celestial in Toronto
After the Trail, I discovered a branch of Hack Club called Days of Service, an initiative to support girls in coding. Thanks to the Hack Club cofounder Christina and the event mananger Zenab, I got to travel to Toronto and help organize an event called Celestial.
Celestial was an one-day hackathon on October 19th in Toronto at Shopify. We met weekly months before to find venues, design merch, advertise, and find leading women in tech to be mentors. There were two workshops, PCB and 3D modeling. I helped run the PCB workshop. I also designed some of the stickers.
On the 18th, I flew from Boston to Toronto and met up with the other Celestial organizers! It was so cool to finally see them in person. We also got to attend a dinner with ten women leaders in tech and learned a lot from their experiences! I noticed a common theme of what they said was to not ask for permission and to take risks! Overall, helping organize Celestial and being able to travel to Toronto to meet so many cool people was a wonderful experience. I got to learn so much and meet a ton of amazing people!
Ascend in Los Angeles
Ascend was the biggest teenage female tech summit! It was part of the Days of Service initiative, under Hack Club. The hackathon was hosted at SpaceX in Los Angeles from November 15th to 17th! There were 50 girls, selected from applications, from more than 5 different countries and 10 states! We spent the weekend experiencing technical workshops and meeting other girls and woman leaders in tech as we created coding projects! I worked on a project using A-Frame with Eesha and Ishika. Ascend was such a great experience and I got to learn so much!!
Counterspell Boston
Counterspell was a beginner-friendly game jam for highschoolers that happened in more than 50 cities all over the world in more than 15 countries and 12 states simultaneously on November 23rd and 24th as part of Hack Club. Teenager coders came together to build apps and games! I helped organize Counterspell Boston, planning and hosting the event at the Microsoft NERD Center on November 23rd. This was the second event I've helped organize and it was a great experience overall! I got to learn more about the process of finding venues, finding sponsors to raise money, and advertising to get attendees! We received over 85 sign-ups! The theme of the hackathon was You are Your Own Enemy. I had a great time meeting all the amazing people who came and building a project using pygame!
The Trail in California
From July 11, 2024 to July 20, 2024, I went on a life-changing trip on the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2650 mile long trail from Mexico to Canda (the website and the documentary). Over the course of a week, I hiked 30 miles alongside 29 teenage hackers from 9 different countries and 15 states! This event was organized by Hack Club, community of over 34,000 teenage makers and creators! The Trail was an adventure of a lifetime.
My blog is split into 4 sections.
ARRIVAL: flying in, meeting people, and slot machines.
SURVIVAL: hiking and camping in the woods, and bear box challenges.
REVIVAL: finally seeing civilization again, exploring Reno, and green baby heads.
THRIVAL: a look back at the Trail magic.
THE BOOK: details about a handmade physical book I made about this journey!
Undercover
Glow
“Do anything, but let it produce joy” - Walt Whitman