Well, initially I really wanted a motorbike, and I knew I wanted to do something about renewable energy - that's always been a topic of interest to me. Then I remembered this experiment I did in a middle school science class where our teacher showed us how water could be separated into two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. And that's when it all clicked.

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I immediately did some research and found out that this idea of creating cleaner engines with hydrogen was not only possible but many had experimented with it. We're on an island surrounded by water, the most abundant resource on Earth. Why not try and see if we can turn water into fuel, and then the output of that fuel is water again? That's how it really started - creating a cycle.

Bali has a huge dependence on tourism and and because of that, there's a lot of transportation and local people are forced to sell their land for cash to keep up with growing expenses. Part of what really drove me in this project was seeing how we could make our fuel last longer ultimately making it cheaper and cleaner for all that use it.

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What really shocked me in a positive way was when one of my mentors found a group on Serangan Island with support from the government researching and prototyping a fully hydrogen village. They have very similar goals to mine but have the extra challenges of implementing it fully into a community and educating said community on a new way of living. Already here in Indonesia, there's a group actively trying to reach this goal. That was the biggest surprise.

I'm lucky to have so much support not only from family and friends but also from school. This is my capstone and part of my graduation, so we're provided four hours a week to work on it. Many of my peers have projects about combating the waste problem, reducing energy through AC, water crisis, issues caused by tourism. We all have the common goal of finding an issue we're passionate about and doing our best to address them.

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Admittedly with such large projects, it can be tricky to balance this with regular school life and my personal life as well. I balance all of this by making sure I get enough time to relax and find joy in most of my other school assignments. I've learned not to be so hard on myself. I used to think if I don't fall asleep reading papers, I'm not trying hard enough. But you need breaks - you need to step back, do something else. I enjoy playing frisbee and volleyball, spending time with friends, listening to music. Those breaks help me come back with fresh perspective.

Before I started this project, I knew that when I graduated I wanted to do something around engineering. But this project has shown me how much I really care about finding a solution to this issue that could be applied all over the world. Just thinking about how this could change people's lives makes me really excited for what the future holds, even if it means I go down a different route with alternative fuel. I got stuck in this climate anxiety - feeling like no matter what you do, you can't make an impact.

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But the philosophy I've built is: as long as you do something you really care about, and use it as a tool to affect the world in a positive way, that's the most important thing. You doing that is already more than enough. Just last year I was much more reclusive and shy, but this project has really built up my confidence and taught me that talking to people is so important. I like to think I have all the great scientists of the past rooting for me.