He may be attending the Georgia Institute of Technology to study the complicated and ever changing field of computer engineering, but Luis Pimentel’s path to higher education can be boiled down to two simple words. By his own admission, he’s blessed to have parents willing and able to move their family from their native Mexico to the United States in search of a better situation. He’s blessed to have had endless academic opportunity and fantastic classroom teachers. He’s blessed to live in a time when some of humanity’s finest minds use open source technology to share their ideas across the globe. Pimentel owes the rest of his success to perseverance. “There aren’t many things that work on the first try, so I try again and again and again,” he says. “The most famous scientists have all believed that their efforts will one day work out and I try to be the same way. I just keep believing that my efforts will work – that they have to work.” For Pimentel, that can-do attitude has meant hours, days, weeks and months in the lab. It’s meant building supercomputers in closets. It’s meant working on unmanned drones and reverse engineering a disabled robotic arm to repair the delicate piece of machinery and save his school thousands of dollars. It’s also meant preparation for years of specialized study at Georgia Tech. “When I work in technology, I feel proud,” he says. “I don’t get that same feeling from all of my academic work, but when I’m in the lab, I know my study will be useful. I know that I’ll use what I learn.” His perseverance and dedication to what he calls the “beautiful struggle” of scientific discovery has not gone unnoticed. As a high Luis Pimentel Georgia Institute of Technology Luis Pimentel stands with his parents, Luis and Teresa Pimentel. school student, he finished with top honors at several local and state technology competitions and earned a position working with Ph.D. candidates at Georgia Tech as they researched topics of interest similar to his own. The experiences have helped ready him for the coming four years, a time Pimentel hopes will be filled with personal and professional growth and with ample opportunity to make a difference. “I’m going to be around great minds – not just those of my classmates, but Ph.D. candidates and my professors as well,” he says. “I know it’s not a competition, but I want do everything I can to contribute.” As he moves forward with plenty of experience and a Martin Marietta scholarship in his pocket, Pimentel knows that he has his parents, Lithonia Quarry Rock Splitter Luis Pimentel and Teresa Pimentel, to thank. “My dad has always told me that he wants me to go as far as I can in school so that I won’t have to do the same hard jobs he’s had to do,” the teen says. “I want to make all of his sacrifices worth it.” ▼ Just the Facts: Luis Pimentel High School: Heritage High School (Conyers, Georgia) Weighted GPA: 4.1 Shares well with others: Luis is part of the open source community, meaning he publishes nearly all of his work online so that others can build on what he’s learned. www.martinmarietta.com | September/October 2017 The Conveyor 15
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