Hi. My name is Brody Mistrot, and as of the date this website is published, I am a junior at Natick High School.
The first thing you should know about me is that I’m a huge nerd. I love science, technology, and Sci-Fi, and anything else that can be considered nerdy. In terms of science, chemistry is the best science, at least in my opinion. It incorporates elements of every other discipline. Nuclear chemistry connects with physics in the realm of basic quantum theory and electron orbits. Biochem connects with biology in that chemistry is neccessary for any biological process to take place. Finally, geology connect with the basics of atomic structure because without it, geologists would have nothing to study. Yet chemistry is also vital in our daily lives. It allows your coffee to brew; it allows your car to run; most importantly, it allows your body to function. The ability to understand those reactions and harness their properties is what gives one the power to change the world for the better.
I’m also a huge tech geek. Apparently, I’ve been good with computers from an early age. My dad tells the story that I would sit on his lap and play “Putt Putt Enters the Race” on an old IBM Thinkpad. Since then, my interest in technology has soared. I earned my A+ Certification my freshmen year of high school and my ACMT Certification in Apple Computers my sophomore year. I hope to earn my Adobe Dreamweaver Certification at the end of this school year and my Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator Certifications during my senior year.
Outside of school, I take my nerdiness to new heights, literally. I am speaking of flying my drone, two pictures from which are featured on my homepage. I enjoy flying and seeing the world from a different perspective. However, I also enjoy my drone as a camera platform. I had a passing interest in photography before I got a drone, but that interest never really took off until I could see the world from 400 feet. It is a perspective that is only seen in the first few minutes of a commerical flight, just off the ground but not too high to lose the little details. It truly gives me a birds eye-view of the world and the opportunity to share it with people.
I have two main extracurriculars: karate and robotics. I have studied karate at Revolution Martial Fitness since I was in the 6th grade. After almost 6 years, I have achieved the rank of brown belt, and I am about to begin my final training for my black belt. I am also a teaching assistant for the 4-6 year old Little Dragons and the 7-12 year old Juniors. Many people think that martial arts is a violent activity for violent people. While there are violent components to the martial arts, it is really about precision, control, and the stress relief that comes from it, just like any other physical activity. Both teaching and training are the main things that help me stay sane.
My other extracurricular, robotics, is the activity that can undo all of the sanity that karate brings me. That's not to say that I don't enjoy it, it is just a very high stress enviornment oftentimes. A robotics season goes as follows: only three days of rotating new members around our three teams to determine team composition. We then delve into several weeks of brainstorming, building, programming, testing, and driving. We go to our first meet and the previous cycle repeats every three weeks until our league championship. If all goes well, there are about 4-5 weeks between league championships and the state competition. Unfortunately, most of the time we don’t make it past States and our season ends there. In the post season, we focus on sponsor recruitment, community outreach, our robotics summer camp, and side projects to keep our skills sharp.