Last month, rising eighth grader Kira Bardin was named the U-15 (under 15) National Champion for both the individual and mixed relay divisions at the USA Modern Pentathlon National Championship, held in Roswell, N.M. Her performance also qualified her for an invitation to the elite USA Modern Pentathlon Olympic Development program – an intensive, week-long residential training program at the US Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Bardin qualified for the national event after a decisive win at the Wolfpack Regional Pentathlon.
Modern Pentathlon combines swimming, fencing, horse jumping and laser-run (in which competitors run laps and shoot targets with laser pistols) into a single, one-day event. It has been an Olympic sport since 1912. Bardin will compete in the U-17 division next year and hopes to join the USA Modern Pentathlon Junior World Team with a goal towards representing the United States at the international level in 2022 and beyond. To follow her journey, please visit https://www.kirabardin.com.
At Thursday’s grade 8 promotion ceremony, the Class of 2025 formally concluded its journey as middle schoolers and began preparing to transition to the upper school. Middle school division head Evan Barth welcomed leadership council officers Aaron Bao and Sam Parupudi to speak to the departing eighth graders.
Parupudi thanked her classmates for helping her grow as a person during her time in the middle school. “You all have encouraged me to make so many decisions that I wouldn’t have even considered had I not been through these experiences with you,” she said. “You all have made more of an impact on my life than you or even I will ever know of, and I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank you for that.”
Bao expressed confidence that he and his fellow soon-to-be ninth graders would meet the challenges ahead and thanked teachers and parents for their guidance and support. “Our teachers are the ones who have laid the foundation of our learning and the ones who have supported us in our endeavors. Our parents have supported us throughout our entire lives in everything we have done,” he said. “Thank you to all who have had the patience to help us pursue our goals.”
Following the Middle School String Quartet’s performance of Handel’s “La Rejouissance,” Rebecca Williams, middle school English teacher and Class of 2025 dean, delivered her farewell address. Williams summarized the students’ many extraordinary accomplishments over the past year, particularly their ability to adapt to unprecedented circumstances, which made clear the importance of finding new solutions to new problems. “We in fact need to do things differently because the new normal is no longer the normal that we left behind,” she said. “So as you enter high school and you start kicking around that question, ‘what are you going to do?’ Maybe you do something differently, because you’ve proven you can. And in doing it differently, maybe you show that it can be done better.”
The Middle School Jazz Band then performed Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train,” and rising senior Dawson Chen, who is also the 2021-22 upper school ASB president, took the podium to deliver a welcome address to the incoming freshman class. Chen shared a pair of stories about the lessons he learned at middle school, one in which the results of an algebra test taught him the value of studying and hard work. “The experience of middle school math classes has instilled in me a notion of working hard and taking no shortcuts,” he said. The second story involved a movie night with his friends, where after witnessing them devour the treats he had helped prepare, he “couldn’t help but marvel at the cheerful, cozy atmosphere that we managed to create together with the power of community.” He called up on the Class of 2025 to reflect on their fondest memories as middle schoolers, “whether it’s cramming your expository writing essays, winning in an epic sports game or going to your first dance, and share those memories with the friends, teachers, coaches and family that you experienced them with.”
Students then each received their promotion certificates from Head of School Brian Yager. Barth then offered his closing remarks, saying, “The status quo can work, but I encourage you to be observant and seek out changes that will make you happy and happier. I am confident that is an effective strategy for you to get the most out of high school and beyond, and I hope you will embrace it.”
Harker upper and middle school VEX robotics teams were named world champions at the VEX Robotics World Championship held May 16-22. The VEX Robotics World Championship is the largest robotics competition in the world with over 8,600 students and 798 teams from more than 30 countries competing. The 798 teams were selected from more than 12,000 teams based on their performance in various events throughout the season. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the competition was held remotely. The VEX World Live Remote Tournament (LRT) Championship pitted a pair of teams against each other to score as many points as possible. The VEX World Live Remote Skills (LRS) Championship challenged a single robot to score as many points as it could.
Sophomores Amrita Pasupathy and Nidhya Shivakumar won the High School VEX World LRT Championship and were crowned world champions. Pasupathy and Shivakumar were undefeated among the 307 participating high school teams throughout the qualifying and elimination rounds until the finals of the tournament, in which they competed against the best high school teams in the world. In the finals, the pair won two out of the three matches to be crowned world champs.
In the Middle School VEX World LRT Championship, the one-person team of Kaitlyn Su, grade 8, was crowned the world champion in the middle school division, comprising 166 teams. She went undefeated against the best middle school teams in the world. She won all her matches in the qualifying and elimination rounds, including a sweep of the finals.
In the High School VEX World LRS Championship (comprising 189 high school teams), ninth graders Jordan Labio, Sriram Bhimaraju and Zachary Blue earned the coveted Judges Award, given to the team that is most deserving of special recognition.
Harker middle school math students had a series of successes this past spring. Angela Liu, grade 8, placed in the top 20 at the national Mathcounts competition, held May 8-10. Liu competed as one of four representatives from California, considered the most competitive state. California placed second overall in the competition. Liu was one of three Harker middle school students to reach the state finals, along with eighth graders Jacqueline Huang and Jonny Xue. Harker’s Mathcounts students were coached by Vandana Kadam, middle school math department chair, who was California team coach in 2020.
Mathcounts also hosts a video contest, in which Harker was a top four finalist. Eighth graders Jacqueline Huang, Juliana Li, Kashish Priyam and Sophia Zhu’s video, “Banking on Math,” was the first video Harker had ever submitted for the competition.
Earlier in spring, the 20th annual Diana Nichols Harker Math Invitational for grades 6-8, held March 21, was a highly successful event with 17 schools and about 432 contestants taking part in the individual and team contests. There were 79 competing and 15 non-competing teams for the team contest.
In individual competition at the sixth grade level, Haofang Zhu took first place, Claire Tian placed third and Sylvia Chen placed fourth. At the eighth grade level, Julian Li placed third and Aarush Vailaya, Agastya Ravuri and Jeremy Peng tied for fourth.
In team competition, Harker teams took the top three spots at the sixth grade level, with team 6A (Sylvia Chen, Risa Chokhawala, Rohan Goyal, Raeanne Li, Iona Liu, Aaron Luo and Claire Tian) placing first, 6C (Nyssa Kansal, Brandon Labio, Lucas Lum, Lily Peng, Sanjith Senthil, Sri Srinavasan and Graham Zhang) placing second and 6B (Audrey Hu, Shamik Khowala, Ridhan Randheri, Axel Szolusha, Nathan Yee, Haofang Zhu and Ellie Zhou) placing third. At the grade 7 level, Harker team 7A (Jaden Fu, Jessica Hu, Brenna Ren, Caden Ruan, Lily Shi, Kallie Wang and Tiffany Zhu) took third place. At the grade 8 level Harker Team 8A (Audrey Cheng, Neil Krishnan, Juliana Li, Kashish Priyam, Aarush Vailaya, Jessica Wang and Alex Zhong) placed second, while team 8A (Ainslie Chen, Tiffany Gu, Katerina Matta, Jeremy Peng, Agastya Ravuri, Max Zhai and Sophia Zhu) placed third.
Last Friday, middle school faculty were given an opportunity to tour the new middle school campus, which is being built at the former site of the preschool campus. Teachers were greeted by middle school division head Evan Barth and guided by facilities director Mike Bassoni, who led the group around the site and explained the features of the new buildings and helped them envision what the campus would look like when finished. Teachers had the opportunity to explore the new buildings and enjoyed getting an up-close look at their future classrooms.
Several teams of Harker students received recognition at this year’s Tech Challenge, held by The Tech Interactive in San Jose. Each year, the Tech Challenge invites students in grades 4-12 to use engineering skills to solve a real-life problem. This year’s task was to use recycled cardboard to create a useful appliance that could transform into another useful appliance. Because this year’s Tech Challenge was held virtually, teams showed their work for judges at a virtual showcase.
Nicholas Knauer, Ameera Ramzan, Adrian Roufas and Chelsea Xie, the sixth graders who made up team Yes We CAAN, won the Outstanding Overall award for creating a cat playhouse that could also be repurposed into an organizer for books and writing utensils.
Team RASA – an acronym made with the first initials of fifth graders Riya Chadha, Abby Heinlein, Sofe Jalil and Augusta Chen – went a similar route, creating a school supplies organizer that could be converted into a cat house. Their work won them the Judges’ Choice award for Outstanding Presentation.
Fifth graders Christian Choi, Matthew Lee and Andrew Pangborn – who competed as Team MAC n Cheese – won the Outstanding Engineering Design Process award for their creation of a small desk that could be converted into a trash can. They were also finalists in the video contest.
Harker upper and middle school VEX robotics teams had a very successful year, with seven teams qualifying for the world championship in May and four winning awards at the recent California State Championship. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most VEX events were held remotely. Live Remote Skills (LRS) events challenged a single robot to score as many points as it could, whereas Live Remote Tournament (LRT) events pitted a pair of robots against each other to score as many points as possible. Throughout the season, the teams participated in various LRS and LRT events, improved their robots and persevered through the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sophomores Amrita Pasupathy and Nidhya Shivakumar were tournament finalists in the California High School State LRT Championship and are currently ranked 12th in high school World Robot Skills Rankings. At the California High School State LRS Championship, ninth graders Jordan Labio, Sriram Bhimaraju and Zachary Blue were the Robot Skills Champions and earned the Excellence Award given to the top all-around team, based on robot performance and judging. Ninth graders Ella Yee and Julie Shi qualified for the state championships by being a Robot Skills Runner Up at an earlier LRS event.
In the California Middle School State LRS Championship, the one-person team of eighth grader Kaitlyn Su was named the Robot Skills Champion and earned the Amaze Award for having the top performing robot. She is also ranked first in middle school World Robot Skills Rankings. In the same event, seventh graders Janam Chahal, Kimi Yashar, MacEnzie Blue and Minal Jalil, earned the Design Award given to the team with the most effective robot design process. Sixth graders Rohan Goyal, Krishna Muddu, Risa Chokhawala, Orion Ghai and Ayden Grover qualified for the state championships. They earned a spot in the World Championship by claiming Robot Skills Runner-Up at an earlier LRS event. Spark Robotics — made up of eighth graders Vedant Balachandran, Rushil Jaiswal, Rishi Lalwani and Shivraj Panja, who also presented at the 2021 Harker Research Symposium — also qualified for worlds.
The middle school girls robotics team, 1072A – made up of seventh graders MacEnzie Blue, Janam Chahal, Minal Jalil and Kimi Yashar – has qualified for the for VEX Robotics World Championship in May. “They have been practicing and competing under my supervision at the STG campus all year as COVID restrictions have permitted,” said Martin Baynes, middle school computer science teacher. “The girls have worked hard and produced a very successful robot.” The team’s place at the world championship was cemented by receiving the Design Award at the Northern California Middle School State Championships. As with all VEX Robotics events this season, the world championships will be held remotely.
Raji Swaminathan, middle school science teacher, recently published the third book in her series about the elements, titled “The Halogens – Oh, So Reactive!” As with the previous two books, this book follows Atom and her dog, Electron, as they travel to visit the elements via a magic periodic table. The book is currently available to purchase through Amazon and will be available to download for free on April 5-6. The second book in the series will be available for free March 25-28 and April 5-6. Swaminathan’s other two books, “Hydrogen and the Alkali Metals” and “My Basketball Game – A Lesson about Accuracy and Precision,” are available as free downloads through Apple Books.
This story was submitted by Jenny Achten, Harker speech and debate chair.
Harker was the first place overall school at last weekend’s Cal Invitational UC Berkeley speech and debate tournament. The sweepstakes award was calculated by adding up the overall strength of the team across all events. The tournament is massive, with over 2,000 competitors from more than 200 schools representing 28 states.
Outstanding individual performances by many middle and upper school students contributed to this special award. In congressional debate, seniors Jason Lin and Nathan Ohana, junior Aaditya Gulati, and sophomore Arissa Huda won awards. In varsity Lincoln-Douglas, seniors Akshay Manglik and Andy Lee, juniors Anshul Reddy and Deven Shah, sophomores Deeya Viradia and Rahul Mulpuri, as well as freshman Ansh Sheth placed. Junior William Chien and sophomore Michelle Jin placed in extemporaneous speaking. Chien also won an award in impromptu speaking, along with junior Andrea Thia, sophomore Sara Wan and seventh grader Pavitra Kasthuri. Kasthuri also won an award in dramatic interpretation.
In informative speaking, sophomore Zubin Khera and freshman Iris Fu placed. In junior varsity Lincoln-Douglas debate, eighth graders Navya Samuel and Stefan Maxim, and seventh graders Ananya Pradhan, Danielle Steinbach, Tanvi Sivakumar, Disha Gupta and Sofia Shah won awards. Eighth graders Veer and Ruhan Sahasi were in elimination rounds of junior varsity public forum debate. In original oratory, senior Julia Biswas, and sophomores Dyllan Han, Austina Xu and Eileen Ma placed. Finally, in varsity public forum debate, award winners included seniors Emma Dionne and Fonda Hu, and juniors Caden Lin, Vedant Kenkare, Rohan Rashingkar, Arnav Jain, Vinay Sudarsanam and Andrew Vodinh-Ho.