Atomic Theory

PA State Computer Fair: 10th grade submission

April 2012

In 10th grade, I returned to the Pennsylvania State Computer Fair with a website about Atomic Theory. This was a particularly exciting year for me because my school had just started teaching us about Adobe Flash. I was mesmerized by the ability to create smooth, vector-based animations and interactive elements that felt much more dynamic than standard HTML at the time. I knew I had to incorporate Flash into my competition entry to stand out.

Experimental Design

I decided to try something experimental: a one-page “click-to-scroll” website. Instead of navigating between different pages, clicking on a link would smoothly scroll the user to a different section of the same page.

The centerpiece was a series of Flash-based informational widgets. When a user navigated to a new section, the data for that section would “slide out” from a portal at the bottom of the screen and move into a central view. I thought it looked incredibly futuristic and polished.

Unfortunately, like my previous attempt, this website did not make it to states. While the technical ambition was there, I think I may have prioritized the “cool” factor of the animations over the overall clarity and structure of the content. It was another important lesson in balancing form and function in web development—a lesson that would stay with me as I prepared for my final two years of the competition.

And, while not important for the competition. The heavy reliance on Flash was a major drawback. As the web moved toward HTML5 and mobile-friendliness, Flash became obsolete and eventually stopped being supported by browsers. Today, the website is partly un-viewable. And those same interactive widgets would have to be rebuilt using HTML5 or CSS animations.