When Arevik Khachatryan first walked into TUMO Yerevan as a teenager, she was not thinking about artificial intelligence, neural networks or data models. She was thinking about penguins.

At 13, she spent hours crocheting tiny penguin figurines, each one with its own personality and story. Animation seemed like the perfect way to bring them to life. So when she arrived at TUMO, she made a plan: take animation workshops, build a story, animate her penguins and create a short film.

Simple. Except, like most journeys at TUMO, hers didn’t follow a straight line.

Arevik Khachatryan did not picture herself writing code or training large language models. “I just wanted to bring my crocheted penguins to life,” she says, laughing. “Before my first day at TUMO, animation was all I could think about. I imagined my penguins moving, talking, becoming real characters.”

After completing the prerequisite self-learning activities, she chose animation workshops the moment she could. “It was the obvious choice,” she recalls. “I had stories, I had characters, I just needed to learn how to make them move.” For a while, that was her world. But the TUMO experience encourages exploration. “I came with a single goal, but once I started learning, I realized I had the freedom to try so much more.”

Arevik’s First Animation Workshop Result | TUMO Yerevan, 2019

In between animation workshops, she tried robotics “just out of curiosity.” Then programming. “It happened so gradually I did not even realize I was changing direction. I would finish an animation assignment and then go build something with sensors. Then I started writing little scripts to make things work better. That is when I realized programming could be creative too.”

By the time she had completed 52 workshops and learning labs across 10 of TUMO’s 14 focus areas, her interests had shifted. “Animation was still close to my heart,” she says. “But I started spending more time in technology labs. I wanted to understand how things actually worked.”

One of those learning labs was led by visiting professors from Harvard. “I do not remember my exact first impression,” she says. “But I remember how he talked about evaluating code. He said if it works, that is great, that is half the points. The rest depends on how clean and readable it is, and whether it is written with future changes in mind. That stayed with me. It taught me that good code is not just about results. It is about thinking ahead.”

When she discovered AI, something clicked. “At first, it seemed easy because our workshop leaders made everything simple and fun. We worked with real data and learned to analyze it, to see how every choice changed the outcome. But there were moments where nothing behaved the way you expected. You could do everything right and still get a surprise. That unpredictability made it exciting. It felt alive.”

She lights up when she talks about those early steps in programming. “I got one of the best results in the workshops, and it made me realize I could actually do this. I was torn between creative fields and technical ones, but that experience helped me choose.”

In 2019, during Ashish Mohite’s Create Your Own 3D Printer learning lab, Arevik and her teammates built a fully functioning clay 3D printer. This year the project qualified for the Vahē  and Lucie Technology Award, which selects outstanding final works from TUMO workshops and learning labs held between January 2018 and September 2025. Projects that have already won in previous years are not eligible, making each round a new spotlight for fresh ideas.

They learned the mechanics of 3D printers, studied the math behind their motion, programmed the machine in C++ on Arduino, and assembled every part themselves. They also explored clay as an eco-friendly printing material and tested it with their own designs.

This year, that same project earned second place in the 2025 Vahē and Lucie Technology Award. “I was so happy and pleasantly surprised to win,” said Arevik. “It was the first time something like this had happened,” she said. “For a 2019 lab result to receive an award six years after.”

The lab required experience in robotics or 3D modeling, both of which she had. “That’s why I was active in both the printer’s construction and the 3D modeling,” she explained. Among her designs was Koty, a teenage humanoid cat character she created during her time at TUMO. “We didn’t forget Koty in this workshop either,” she added. “Because of the printer’s limitations, we decided to print only the head.”

“The lab was really intense,” she said. “I’ll never forget the moment we didn’t account for the voltage difference and ended up burning one of the printers and our instructor’s laptop.”

Arevik’s “Explore Neutral Circuitry” Learning Lab result visualized | TUMO Yerevan, 2020

Now an AI engineer at Tedly, a U.S.-based AI-powered property management platform, she looks back on her time at TUMO as a turning point. “When I first came, I wasn’t strong in technology and I did not feel a passion for it. Now it is my whole life.”

She believes more teens should explore AI. “It is one of the most complex and fascinating fields. Back then we did not have a dedicated GenAI focus area. Now teens can go much deeper. But it still starts with programming. You have to learn the fundamentals first. Once you do, you can build anything.”

Outside the workshop rooms, Arevik was also known for something very different: Rubik’s cubes!

“I’ve been into cubing for nine years,” she says. “This past year I started speedcubing.” She owns more than 30 puzzles, from classic cubes to specialty forms, and even led the Rubik’s Cube club at TUMO. “I taught dozens of students how to solve the cube. It became another way to explain logic, patterns, and problem solving, but in a fun, competitive way.”

When asked what she’d tell new TUMOians, she pauses. “Don’t plan everything. Try everything. I came to animate penguins. I left designing intelligence. The best discoveries happen when you don’t expect them.”

Arevik’s Graduation Ceremony | Personal Archive, 2025

This year, Arevik joined a history-making moment in Armenia. She became part of the country’s first graduating class in Artificial Intelligence Systems at the National Polytechnic Institute of Armenia, earning top marks and first place in master’s admissions. “There was no path. We were building it while we learned,” she says. “It felt like shaping a field that Armenia has never had before.”

“This is not just a degree,” she explains. “It shows that Armenia is ready to stand in the global AI space and contribute.” For Arevik, it is not about being first. It is about what comes next, and the future she believes young people in Armenia will build one breakthrough at a time.

In the end, Arevik did not choose between art and engineering. She proved they were never opposites. AI is another way to build worlds. Code is another way to tell a story. Her story just happened to start with a penguin.