About Me

Get to know more about my journey, interests, and what makes me who I am

Tony Gao at 14

My Story: Code and Court

🎓 14 Years Old 📍 The Fessenden School 🎾 Squash 4.6 💻 AI & Python

Hi, I'm Tony. Welcome to my planet.

🌍 The Journey: Six years ago, when I built the first version of this site at age 8, reading was my only way to bridge the virtual and physical worlds. Today, as an international boarding student at The Fessenden School in Boston, my world has expanded drastically. Embracing a diverse, tight-knit dorm community has taught me as much about empathy as my books have.

🎾 The Court: If I'm not in my dorm reading Doctor Zhivago, you will find me on the squash court. I've been playing competitively since I was 9, grinding my way to a 4.6 rating. Squash is a brutal physical chess match, but I quickly realized that taking my game to the next level required more than just sweat—it required data.

💻 The Code: That realization sparked my love for computer science. I taught myself Python and machine learning, eventually building an AI-powered squash coach using Streamlit and computer vision to analyze my biomechanics. I love the feeling of encountering a problem in the physical world, breaking it down, and coding a solution in the digital one.

💡 Current Status: Building open-source tools for the 2026 boarding school application season, surviving rigorous AP prep, and serving as the Chief Planet Architect for my cat, Hazel.

Since I've been a small kid, people have called me all kinds of things, mostly optimistic and few negative. In my own heart, though, I'm proud about myself, not about what I've accomplished but instead what kind of person I am. I'm proud because I understand myself, my weaknesses and problems, notwithstanding what others have said about me, I do understand that I have much more to do and to become in the future. Hence, in the future, I will be proud and happy to accept any ideas, pieces of this and that that might add to my character in a good way, or any perspective other people might see that I could be blind to.

As a student, I've read many books, but still less than I would like to. Reading is one of the few activities that I almost never get bored of. Books come in all forms, some famous for their interesting aspect of attracting readers into a story and not letting them go, while others might be more famous for provoking thought. For books to become a piece of life, I've read a lot of books from both these sides, almost all by recommendation from readers with much more experience than me.

Reading has much in common with appreciating art projects, since when I read, I picture myself as the author often, writing certain sentences, paragraphs and deleting some as well, tweaking my text. However, everytime I try writing on my own it doesn't work out so well. Actually, reading has become something between the virtual world and the real. As technology develops, the virtual world has become a big part of our lives. For myself, videos, video games and stuff online has taken a lot of my time, and has become almost my favourite form of amusement. Meanwhile, virtual and physical have become so disconnected that people need something to pull them together. For me, books have been such a hobby.

Another aspect of me is my friends. I make friends with everyone I am happy to stay with, and they are also happy to be with me. Most of all, I hope they can provide me what my parents or teachers don't. Intimacy and care is what I try to find and give of my friends. As long as we both are happy, then we have a great relationship. Friendship really helps, especially in places one doesn't think about much. Rather than facing my problems along, my friends give me the opportunity of facing them with the knowledge that I have help with me at all times. They've helped me where I thought I could cross on my own, and I'm more than grateful for that.

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