I have been told many times that my legacy to team 930 is our website. When I first joined the team, there was no website. Nothing to go off of. I tried to make something in only a few weeks: the layout was mediocre; the content was so-so. But the attempt, the groundwork was there.

That was two years ago. Last year I tried again, this time spending more than just a few weeks on it—rather a few months. It turned out great. We didn’t end up winning the top website award, but my mentors said we were way up there. That meant a lot to me.

With that in mind, this past year I set out on a mission. Rather than waiting for Christmas break to start in on the new website, I started during the summer. I think the added few months really has made a difference.

I first started, as I always do, on paper. I love feeling a pen touch the paper and know that eventually it will be a bunch of tiny lights making a line of pixels. After about a dozen different ideas, I chose the one shown to the right.

An early version of the new website, hand drawn by myself.

It was simple enough (minimalistic websites are quite sexy), and the drop down menus were a must, as the team had been requesting them for months.

I let the design sit for awhile. I knew that if I did that, I would find things that needed to be changed. I left it on my desk for the rest of the summer, while keeping the entire project in the back of my head.

Thanksgiving came. I spent an hour looking over my papers again, changing a few things (like adding a sidebar for the blog section) and writing some notes down about how the media section should be rearranged.

I let it sit again.

Christmas break. Boom. Time to work. A few all nighters came and went. Everything was going great. I was happy.

The season is almost over, and the website is almost due. The media section has been redone completely. The blog looks better than ever. The pages have all been rewritten and updated. Everything is as perfect as I could make it. I am proud of what I and the web team I trained have done.

From paper to pixels, this website has evolved. I have one more evolution in me before I graduate. I know it will be even better than anything that has happened before.