About Kestron

 Greetings, my name is Jacob Higbe, and I'm better known online as Kestron. I'm an aspiring Software Developer, behind too many projects to list anymore. Even the list at Projects isn't complete. My most notable achievements are Stewbot, a Discord bot for keeping servers fun, engaging and clean, and Sleuth, a search engine designed to act as a proxy between you and the biggest search engines keeping your searches private and allowing for better results by averaging the results between all three. Some other things I've programmed include other kinds of bots, a Jarvis-like voice assistant prototype, websites and webapps, small Android apps, browser extensions, and some small games. One of my more interesting projects is MiiJS, an NPM package I developed that allows you to read, write, create, and convert Miis to and from a Wii or 3DS/Wii U, including support for Special Miis.

 My coding debut began or so years ago. I logged onto Khan Academy to study for an upcoming math test, and when bored poked around the other tutorials the site had to offer. I was 9-10 at the time. I toyed with reverse engineering someone else's project for a while, growing my skills in the process. Eventually I began making my own things, with the quality of these projects growing slowly over the years. Years later I joined a Khan Academy themed Discord server and after being made a moderator began working on Stewbot (then known as Kestron-Tron) to automate some moderation actions. As time went on, I built onto this bot more and more, learning lots of skills with Node.js. It was during this period I really started branching out into a lot of different larger projects.

 When people ask me how I learned to code, my response is that I just jumped in and made myself swim. Now, this may not be good advice for everyone, but studying the documentation or taking classes never clicks in my mind. What has worked is deciding I want to make something or achieve an end result, and learning the specific way to do it. The steps to do so and the understanding of what is going on can then be reapplied to other projects.

 I began college at age 15 through the Running Start program. I recently completed the program and some final studies. For all intents and purposes, I have graduated at age 17 with an AAS-T Information Technology: Software Development degree. I am only waiting on the official paperwork to finish processing. I also completed studies of the AWANA Citation Award requiring a full cover-to-cover in depth study of the Bible, over a decade of study and dedication, and over 800 memorized verses.

 As for other interests, most are fleeting. One that isn't however is a passion for working with children. I have worked with kids younger than myself to some capacity for as long as I've been a coder. I enjoy it greatly. I was made a youth leader for the local Cub Scout pack at age 11 for three years until the coronavirus pandemic. I spent a year as the second-in-command youth leader for Trail Life, which is like a Christian version of Boy Scouts. I've also helped out around our local AWANA club for as long as they've allowed me, as I've been attending since I was 6. Most recently I've been helping lead the Sparks age group (5-7 year olds) in games and I also led our church's Sparks team in the regional AWANA games two years running. I spent three months at a summer camp working with kids of all ages, but 5-7 year olds in particular, every day over the summer of 2023, and I intend to repeat this for summer 2024.

 I have three different small computer related certifications, being Testout Linux Pro, Testout Security Pro, and Cisco Netacad Cybersecurity Essentials. Once the paperwork is done processing, I will have a High School Diploma and Associate's Degree in Software Development.