I came across this in an aviation forum that interests me. It's about a young (14) teenaged girl who aspires to be an aeronautical engineer. She believes in hands-on learning. Sabrina lives in Chicago and went to Canada to learn how to fly starting at age 9. She has built her own homebuilt airplane (a Zenith Zodiac XL) including building the engine. Her plane flew for the first time last month.

Here's a youtube video of her being interviewed by a Chicago TV station. You'll want to fast forward a bit to get past the promo material. A one page summary of her plane is available here.

She sounds like someone with her head on straight. We hear so much about bad kids but there are a lot of good ones out there. She wants to go to MIT and learn how to build spacecraft. I'll bet she makes it.