This story was submitted by Harker parent Maria Gong (Christopher, grade 6).
On March 3, the EagleBots team, comprising grade 6 students Andrew Chang, Christopher Gong, Kaushik Shivakumar and Rithvik Panchapakesan, secured the top spot in the robot performance category of the NorCal First Lego League (FLL) Silicon Valley Championship, held at Newark High School. The EagleBots earned first place in the robot performance category by securing 455 points in a field of 48 teams from six district qualifier tournaments. The EagleBots’ focus on robot performance has been recognized by their achievements over the past two years at the St. Lawrence qualifier where they secured the top spot in the robot performance category this season and second place last year, as a rookie team.
Team StormTech, a second group of grade 6 students made up of Ryan Adolf, Ayush Pancholy, Akshay Ravoor, Ashwin Reddy and Anjay Saklecha, also had an amazing season competing for their first time in FLL. At the NorCal Championships, they were awarded the second place trophy for strategy and innovation and their robot finished fourth overall in the robot game with an impressive 418 points. Their research project, “Invizalift: The Motorized Knee Brace” received praise from the judges. Throughout the season they worked hard and had fun.
All middle school students participated in the California Math League contest on Feb. 19. The league states that a score of 14 points (out of 35) or higher is commendable and a score of 28 points or higher is exceptional. A school’s team score for each grade comprises of the top 5 scores in that grade, the highest being 175 points.
Grade 6’s team score was 160, with the top scorers being Rose Guan with a score of 34 and Katherine Tian with a score of 33. Andrew Chang, Constance Horng, Nishant Ravi and Cindy Wang all had 31 points. Other high scorers were Nicole Chen, Carl Gross and Sara Min, all with 30 points. Official results and rankings are still to come.
Competitors in grade 7 also had a team score of 160. Their top scorers were Shaya Zarkesh with 34 points and Rajiv Movva with 34 points. Adrian Chu, Edgar Lin and Jimmy Lin all had 31 points. Amy Jin, Michael Kwan, Neelesh Ramachandran and Randy Zhao also did very well, scoring 29 points.
Grade 8 had two perfect scores, with Kai-Siang Ang and Peter Wu both scoring 35 points. The team score was 166. David Zhu missed the perfect score by one point. Steven Cao, Ryan Chen, Arnav Tandon and Derrick Wang all had 31 points. Cuebeom Choi, Aditya Dhar, Soham Khan, Kedar Gupta, Ashwin Rao, Alayna Richmond, Vedaad Shakib, Misha Tseitlin and Austin Tuan all scored 29 points.
Harker also had several students take the AMC 10 and 12 exams on two different dates – Feb. 5 (10A or 12A) and Feb. 20 (10B). Students scoring above a certain cut-off determined by the Mathematical Association of America are invited to participate in the American Mathematics Invitational Exam (AIME), which will take place March 14. Six middle school students qualified for the AIME, which is geared toward high school students.
Harker’s top scorers in AMC 10A exam were David Zhu, Jimmy Lin, Edgar Lin and Quentin Delepine, grade 8. Kai-Siang Ang was the top scorer from Harker in the AMC 12A exam and one of the top scorers in the AMC 10B, along with Peter Wu.
Thanks to Karina Momary, director of middle school forensics, for providing us with this story. Colin Rule (Alex, grade 6) visited Karina Momary’s seventh period public speaking class in late February to speak about the beneficial effects forensics had on his life; he also gave advice on how to give an effective impromptu speech.
Momary’s students were preparing for their own impromptu speech project, where they receive a topic, have two minutes to prepare and are expected to speak for three minutes. Rule focused on what he called the three3 Cs – clarity, confidence and connection. He also shared a few stories highlighting his best debate rounds and how he found some great evidence and was able to beat a team on the quality of the evidence.
Rule is a former debater from The Greenhill School in Texas (1989). He was one of their team captains as well as one of the best debaters in their history and their top debate award, given in September at the school’s annual debate tournament, is named after Rule. He is currently the CEO at Modria. http://www.modria.com/team/
Harker students performed well at the Santa Clara County chapter MathCounts contest on Feb. 9. Competing in what is considered to be one of the toughest chapters in the country, Harker’s team of grade 7 students Rajiv Movva and Shaya Zarkesh and grade 8 students Peter Wu and David Zhu placed second among 47 schools, just missing first place by less than a single point. David Zhu scored 44 out of a possible 46 points, placing fifth overall in the competition. Peter Wu scored 42 points, taking 12th. Jimmy Lin, grade 7, scored 41 points and took 18th place. More than 350 students participated in the competition.
“These students have worked very hard to reach this far. They even attended weekend training sessions apart from after-school sessions since September,” said middle school math teacher Vandana Kadam. “They truly deserve this success.”
Harker will head to the state competition on March 23 at Stanford University.
Contributed by middle school debate teacher Karina Momary
The middle school forensics team had an incredibly successful February break. The students competed mostly against high school students and received numerous awards. At Stanford, three teams advanced to the elimination rounds in JV policy debate, which discussed domestic transportation infrastructure.
Several grade 8 students had stand-out performances. Austin Tuan and Steven Cao made it to the top four at the tournament. Nidhi Jain attended her first tournament in humorous interpretation and won second place in the JV division with her piece about the perils of airline travel. Carissa Chen advanced to quarterfinals in varsity impromptu speaking. Aditya Dhar and Misha Tseitlin participated in Congressional Debate and received third and fourth place, respectively.
The University of California, Berkeley tournament is the largest tournament in the country and the most prestigious regular season tournament on the West Coast. Divya Rajasekharan, grade 8, advanced to the top 28 in Dramatic Interpretation out of more than 175 competitors with her piece on autism. Eighth grader Sneha Bhetanabhotla advanced in impromptu speaking. In Lincoln-Douglas, Sagar Rao, grade 7, discussed the benefits of rehabilitation over retribution and had a record of five wins and one loss and advanced to the elimination rounds. Dhar and Alexander Lam, grade 8, advanced to the final round of Congressional debate with more than 130 participants. Lam won 10th place and Dhar won fifth place.
These accomplishments, as well as the immense success of the upper school team, awarded Harker the first place debate sweepstakes award as well as the second place overall sweepstakes award out of 202 schools. This is the highest we have ever received as a 6-12 team at this tournament.
The boys’ march through the playoffs has come to an end after a 53-46 loss against league-rival Menlo last Saturday at Menlo. The teams had rocketed into their quarterfinal showdown after splitting their two matchups during the regular season. The loss marks a tough end to a very strong run by the the team. The boys had advanced to the playoffs after earning a #6 seed with a 17-7 overall record and an 11-3 record in league play. Their sterling play earned the team a first-round bye as they waited to play the winner of a first-round matchup between Stevenson and Pacific Grove. Pacific Grove defeated Stevenson, setting into motion a second-round game between Pacific Grove and Harker last Thursday at Blackford. There, Harker muscled through to a 64-56 victory. Senior Nikhil Panu led the way with a team-high 21 points and sophomore Nic Nguyen played well on all sides of the ball, delivering 13 points, five assists, and seven steals. That win set up the final game of the season against Menlo. Thanks to all of the fans for their support, and congratulations to the boys on their season!
The girls dropped their second-round game against Monte Vista Christian, 53-35, to cap off a season that saw them go 17-6 overall and 7-3 in league play, good for a third-place finish in the WBAL. The girls won their postseason game against 11th-seeded Ocean High School 51-40, setting up the challenge against #6-seeded Monte Vista Christian. Please congratulate the girls for their strong play, especially graduating seniors Daniza Rodriguez, Priscilla Auyueng, Emily Chu, Shreya Vemuri and Rebecca Liu.
Lacrosse
Girls lacrosse had three victories in their jamboree on Saturday in Menlo and then won their home opener on Monday against Tamalpais High School at Davis Field, 18-6. Michelle Douglas, grade 12, led the team with six goals, while Hannah Bollar, grade 10, added five and Wendy Shwe, grade 12, scored four. Tiphaine Delepine and Sam Hoffman, both grade 12, also added scores, while Delepine, Allison Kiang, grade 10, and Adrienne Mendel, grade 12, tacked on assists. Christine Lee, grade 11, had 10 saves in net as the girls’ season got off to a strong start.
Track and Field
Track and field competed at the Bellarmine Meet this Saturday with solid performances from sophomores Julia Wang and Corey Gonzales and seniors Sumit Minocha and Michael Chen, among others. They compete at Mitty and Willow Glen this week.
Lower and Middle School Update
Girls basketball
Grade 8 Varsity A team: 5-2, currently in second place in the WBAL. Key performers are Joelle Anderson, Jordan Thompson and Lindsey Trinh.
Grade 7 Varsity B team: 5-0, currently in first place in the WBAL. Key performers are Satchi Thockchom and Tiffany Shou.
Grade 6 JV A team: 0-5, currently tied for eighth place in the WBAL.Key performers are Jennifer Hayashi and Deana Kajmakovic.
Grade 5 JV B team: 2-2, currently in third place in the WBAL. Key performers are Haley Arena and Grace Hajjar.
Grade 4 JV C team: 4-0, currently in first place in the WBAL. Key performers are Courtney Thompson and Sarah Raymond.
Boys soccer
Grade 8 Varsity A team: 0-3, currently tied for sixth place in the WBAL. Key performers are Joseph Krackeler, Zayne Khouja and Quentin Delepine.
Grade 7 Varsity B team: 2-0, currently tied for first place in the WBAL. Key performers are Rohit Shah, Vedant Shah and Neelesh Ramachandran.
Grade 6 JV A team: 2-1-1, currently in third place in the WBAL. Key performers are Jarrett Anderson, Edwin Su, Stephan Sokolov and Brandon Bien.
Grade 5 JV B team: 4-0, currently in first place in the WBAL. Key performers are Darshan Chahal, Andrew Cheplyansky and Asmit Kumar.
Even with school closed for Presidents’ Day there was no relaxing for Harker’s grade 6 chess team, who spent the recent long weekend in Pleasanton bringing home the 30th National Annual U.S. Amateur Team Championship West title.
Nishant Ravi, Shafieen Ibrahim, Rini Vasan and Shaunak Maruvada, all grade 6, took home top player trophies by going undefeated (in the kids’ division event), with many perfect scores, on the chess boards.
In addition to the Harker group win in the kids’ category, Ibrahim and Maruvada also participated in the U.S. National Amateur Team Championship West’s adult division during the tournament weekend, winning the U1400 championship title. Playing with two other non-Harker players in order qualify as the required team of four, they were up against much higher rated players yet more than managed to hold their own over the course of several intense hours.
“We are very proud of what the kids did and how well they played. Some of the games were really tough and long but they persisted and prevailed,” noted Satish Maruvada, father of Shaunak. “It was a fantastic performance!”
Harker’s middle school recently played host to guests visiting from the World Foreign Language Middle School (WFLMS) in Shanghai, China.
Towards the end of January, students and staff at the Blackford campus graciously welcomed 19 WFLMS students and four chaperones as part of Harker’s student exchange program with its Chinese sister school.
The Harker students and their buddies from China, who had been corresponding since the fall, were thrilled to finally meet in person. Come spring, a contingent of Harker students will head to China as part of the annual exchange program which is a highlight and culmination of the middle school experience for many grade 8 students.
The WFLMS is a semiprivate school specializing in the study of foreign languages. From the school’s first day, it abandoned the traditional pattern in foreign language teaching in favor of students learning by practicing new languages at school, home and through travel abroad.
During their stay from Jan. 22-25, the WFLMS students were matched with 19 of Harker’s grade 7 and 8 students. While here, the exchange students observed and attended several middle school classes and headed over to the lower school for a traditional Chinese paper cutting project with grades 4 and 5. In their free time, the visitors ventured out for some sightseeing activities.
Harker’s unique relationship with the school in the People’s Republic of China began in 2003 and is the first of its kind.
“This past winter was really exciting with many international guests coming our way,” enthused Jennifer Walrod, Harker’s director of global education, explaining that beyond its relationship with WFLMS, Harker builds progressive academic and cultural relationships between institutions around the world. In addition to the WFLMS visit to the middle school, the upper school welcomed visitors from Harker’s sister schools in Japan, Switzerland and Australia.
The overall goal of Harker’s global education program, said Walrod, is to provide meaningful experiences for students at all grade levels, “preparing them to be true global citizens.”
The end of January marked the beginning of the winter video conferences between grade 6 students and their same-age buddies from Harker’s sister school, Tamagawa Gakuen, in Tokyo, Japan.
“Every single one of our sixth graders has been partnered with a buddy in Japan who they’ve been emailing through their computer science class,” said Jennifer Walrod, Harker’s director of global education.
During the recent conference sessions, the students conversed with their buddies face to face (via the video chats) and participated in a fun game show-style question and answer activity.
Back in September, grade 6 students “met” their Tamagawa buddies and families from Japan for the first time via two separately held video conferences.
Those prior initial meetings for Harker’s 27 middle school students participating in the Tamagawa exchange program served as a prequel to the even more exciting live meetings which occurred Oct. 16 when Tamagawa students visited Harker in person. This spring, a contingent of Harker’s grade 6 students will head to Japan as part of the reciprocal exchange program.
“The video conferences are fun events held on the Blackford campus. We have a translator present to assist with communication,” explained Walrod. “The students are always so excited for them!”
Tamagawa Gakuen is a K-12 school and university founded in 1929 as an elementary education organization. Later secondary education divisions were added, and in 1947 Tamagawa University received approval for establishment as an “old system” (pre-war) university. As a comprehensive institution (gakuen), they currently provide education from kindergarten to graduate school within a single campus.
The recent video conferences have now set the stage for the upcoming grade 6 trip to Japan. Meanwhile, kindergartners also had their own special video conferences where they had the opportunity to meet, explore one another’s classrooms, share their likes, and sing songs in both English and Japanese.
The video conferences and reciprocal student exchange program with Tamagawa are examples of Harker’s rich global education program, which has long strived to weave worldwide activities into its students’ daily lives.
Middle School Basketball A great season in middle school basketball is coming to a close!
The varsity A girls soccer team finished 11-0 and took the league title.
The varsity B boys basketball team finished up 8-2 – co-champs – and took second place in the WBAL tournament.
A huge shout out to the middle school basketball teams!
Upper School
Basketball
Girls varsity basketball improved their record to a spectacular 13-2 after defeating Immaculate Conception Academy 52-32 and crushing Mercy-Burlingame in a crucial league game, 60-36. Against ICA, Nithya Vemireddy, grade 11, led the way with 18 points and 13 rebounds. The girls face off against Notre Dame High School on Friday at 7 p.m.
Boys basketball improved to 9-4 overall and 3-0 in league play with their 68-45 win against Woodside Priory. Sophomore Eric Holt had 19 points and 10 rebounds and junior Will Deng had 14 points and 12 rebounds in the victory. The boys traveled to Sacred Heart Prep this Wednesday in a huge league showdown and host Crystal Springs Friday at Blackford at 7:30 p.m.
Soccer
Girls soccer won a blowout 9-0 victory against Latino College Prep this Tuesday to improve their record to 3-5-1 overall. Before facing Latino College Prep, the girls had recently lost to Pinewood 4-0 and tied Mercy-San Francisco 1-1. They host Immaculate Conception Academy on Friday at 3:30 p.m.
Boys soccer defeated Woodside Priory 6-1 at Davis Field on Saturday and then edged out Crystal Springs in an away game on Wednesday. Their record now stands at a strong 5-2 overall. Against Woodside Priory, goals were scored by Oisin Coveney, grade 9, Denis Celik, grade 12, Jeremiah Anderson, grade 10, Robert Deng, grade 12, Jeffrey Hanke, grade 11, and David Lindars, grade 12. The boys travel to Sacred Heart Prep this Friday.