Who's Teaching Whom?

Waters, now a freshman at the University of California at Davis, got much more out of his Autodesk experience than a project that interested him. He has killer AutoCAD skills. He's the proud owner of a modified Fiat, thanks to all he learned from Behier about cars. And he's hooked on racing. "Chris took me to racing school," Waters beams. "That more than makes up for not getting paid."

Behier, who recently left Autodesk to become a software quality manager at an engineering firm, but who remains involved with the kids on the Mustang Project, learned some important lessons of his own about rewards. "This isn't going to benefit Autodesk in the short-term financial sense," he says. "I thought we'd design parts and animate them and see what we could do in a virtual sense. But the company is going to profit by seeing the beautiful creations its software can make, and seeing what kids can do with it."