Japanese folk musician Baisho Matsumoto was invited to the Saratoga campus on May 19 to perform and give a brief but informative introduction to two instruments central to Japan’s musical tradition. Matsumoto started off by playing the shamisen, a three-stringed instrument similar to a lute or banjo that is played with a plectrum called a bachi. He demonstrated both the “kabuki” style, which involves playing and singing simultaneously to accompany kabuki performances, and the “tsugaru” style, a more aggressive and rhythmic method based on improvisation.
Matsumoto also introduced the audience to the shakuhachi, a Japanese flute made from bamboo, playing a medley of Japanese folk songs and, to the audience’s amusement, a small selection of American songs, including “Yankee Doodle.”
He ended his show with a pair of Japanese folk songs that featured a little bit of crowd participation, and before leaving said a few words in English about his hope that bringing Japanese tradition to American shores will help unite the two cultures.
Imagine yourself driving down Saratoga Avenue, taking the usual route to the upper school campus, when suddenly the orange low-fuel sign turns on, warning that your tank is low and you need to fill up. But stopping at the nearest gas station does not guarantee the best price. You find yourself scanning the stations that flank the road, looking for the cheapest price.
With the mobile application that Harker students Shefali Netke, Gr. 12, Vivian Wong, Gr. 12, Anika Radiya-Dixit, Gr. 9, Sheridan Jones, Gr. 11 and Kristi Lui, Gr. 11, developed as part of Iridescent Learning’s Spring Technovation Challenge, searching for cheap gas prices would not slow you down.
On April 22, Iridescent held Pitch Night at Microsoft’s Mountain View office, giving students the opportunity to present their ideas in front of venture capitalists. This challenge is a collaboration between Iridescent, the not-for-profit dedicated to providing children in underserved communities with access to cutting-edge science, and Girls in Tech, an organization that aims to empower and promote women in technology.
The team placed third in the competition and was invited to attend the Women of Vision Symposium on May 12.
The five girls worked closely with industry professionals Julie Greenberg and Yasmin Khan to develop their creative mobile app. For eight weeks leading up to Pitch Night, these talented young women worked with the two mentors and participated in hands-on workshops, learning about programming, communication and business fundamentals that were essential in creating a comprehensive proposal.
They created Gas Guy’d, a mobile application that allows drivers to locate accurate, cheap gas prices with an easy-to-use interface and voice activation. Features include GPS directions, real-time prices, a favorites option and detailed station descriptions.
Serving as CEO, Netke presented a four-minute pitch to venture capitalists Katherine Barr, Adeo Ressi and Mendel Rosenblum, and all the teammates participated in a four-minute Q&A after the presentation.
Netke said that Anita Chetty, biology teacher and advisor of Women in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (WiSTEM), was instrumental in motivating the group.
“I think that all of us really learned how to work better in a team environment. We do group projects in school, but this environment was different in the sense that there was much more at stake,” Netke said. “The competition also helped a lot in seeing how much work goes into the entire process of developing an application. We did not just do the building stage or just the presentation; we built the application from scratch, developed a business plan, presented the pitch – all the steps.”
This spring at the upper school the National French Honor Society hosted a French week. Students sold crepes on Wednesday and Friday after school in addition to several other activities held throughout the week. On Wednesday the society screened a film for student enjoyment. The students also produced a bulletin on French culture and the French community.
Coincidentally tickets for the upper school musical, “Les Misérables,” were on sale the same week, which fit nicely with the theme of the week.
The next week the society presented a serious of guest lectures. The goal of the speaker series was to give the “students … some more contact with the francophone community in the Bay Area,” said society advisor Nicholas Manjoine.
Congratulations to rising seniors James Seifert and John Ammatuna who were recognized for their performances as Marius (Outstanding Supporting Actor) and Enjolras (Outstanding Featured Performer), respectively, in “Les Misérables” in San Jose Stage Company’s inaugural High School Top Honors recognition program for area high schools. The awards were presented in June at an awards ceremony held at the California Theater in San Jose.
For many years Harker’s musical theater department participated in an awards program for Bay Area high schools sponsored by American Musical Theatre of San Jose (AMTSJ), the company that nominated Harker for participation in the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. When AMTSJ went defunct, San Jose Stage Company took up the honors mantle and created the High School Top Honors program, sending adjudicators to 15 local high schools this year.
In related news, Harker has once again been invited to perform at the Fringe, and will be performing this year’s musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” at the 2011 Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.
With the school year winding down, the last of the spring sports said goodbye to their seniors. Some of these athletes have played a pivotal role on their teams for four years and we wish them the best of luck in college.
The golf team bid farewell to four seniors at their end-of-the-year banquet. James Feng, Jeremy Whang, Vinay Kumar and Yash Khandwala will all be missed on and off the field.
In this round of goodbyes track & field sent off the most seniors with eight. They were Aadithya Prakash, Brandon Dai, Christine Trinh, Patrick Campbell, Tara Hansen, Thomas Enzminger, Tiffany Kyi and Scott Underwood.
Boys baseball gave their best wishes to Alex Ringold, Greg Plauck, Patrick Smith, Ryan Cali and Stefan Eckhardt. Plauck will be joining fellow alumnus Jason Martin as a collegiate baseball player. Martin plays at San Jose State while Plauck will be playing at Santa Clara University.
Softball lost six seniors this year, bidding adieu to Arthi Padmanabhan, Kacie Kaneyuki, Priya Sathaye, Shanthi Rajagopalan, Shizuka Tiernan and Zaynah Sadiq.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) has announced the third of its four rounds of scholarship winners. The first two rounds were corporate-sponsored; this round is the first of the college-sponsored awards. A fourth round will be announced in the summer.
Congratulations to the following recent graduates, who were sponsored by the schools named here: Alexander Creasman (USC), Michael Gendotti (USC) and Connie Lu (University of Chicago).
As spring sports came to a close, we had several upper school teams and many athletes turn in impressive end-of-season showings.
Golf
Maverick McNealy, Gr. 9, shot a 73 for a top 10 finish at the CCS Golf Tournament! He was one shot short of qualifying for the NorCal Tournament but is first alternate in case one of the four qualifiers can’t participate. He did a great job and his is the best-ever finish for a Harker player.
For more details, see www.cifccs.org/playoffs/results/09-10/bgolfccs10.html
Swimming
At the league championships held on campus at the Singh Aquatic Center, several records were set, including a school and WBAL record time of 1:50.15 in the girls 200 medley relay. The winning team was made up of Katie Siegel, Gr. 10, Tina Ma, Gr. 12, Vivian Wong, Gr. 12, and Jessica Khojasteh, Gr. 11. WBAL records were also broken in the girls 200 IM by J. Khojasteh, in 2:06.04; the girls 100 back by Siegel in 58.34; the girls 100 breast by V. Wong, in 1:06.41; the boys 200 medley relay by Kevin Khojasteh, Gr. 10, Michael Clifford, Gr. 12, Daryl Neubieser, Gr. 10, and Cole Davis, Gr. 12, with a time of 1:40.13; and the boys breast by K. Khojasteh in :59.99. Additional school records were set by Neubieser in the boys 200 (1:46.90) and 500 free (4:50.35), and in the boys 200 IM by K. Khojasteh (1:56.70).
Event winners at the championships included J. Khojasteh (200 IM, 100 free); Siegel (100 back); V. Wong (100 breast); girls 200 medley relay (Siegel, Ma, V. Wong, J. Khojasteh); K. Khojasteh (100 breast); Davis (50 free); and the boys 200 medley relay (K. Khojasteh, Clifford, Neubieser, Davis).
Individual CCS qualifiers were V. Wong, Ma, J. Khojasteh, Siegel, Lucy Cheng, Gr. 10, Tiffany Wong, Gr. 10, Davis, Clifford, K. Khojasteh and Neubieser. In the relays, all of the above students qualified, as well as Jeanette Chin, Gr. 12, Rachelle Koch, Gr. 10, Amie Chien, Gr. 9, Stefan Schwartz, Gr. 12, Darren Syu, Gr. 12, Chris Ng, Gr. 11, and Hassaan Ebrahim, Gr. 11.
At the CCS finals, the boys swim team not only was named CCS Scholastic Team Champions, they alsoplaced fourth overall (behind Bellarmine, Valley Christian and Sacred Heart Prep). The girls swim team placed eighth. Both results were the best placing ever for Harker. Before four years ago Harker had never scored a single point at CCS!
The highlight among highlights in the meet for Harker was J. Khojasteh (also Harker’s female athlete of the year) winning the first ever CCS title in any sport of any kind for Harker. In the most exciting race of the day, the 200 individual medley, Khojasteh touch tied for second after the butterfly leg, .44 behind the leader. After the backstroke, her “weakest” stroke, the race was still very close with Khojasteh in third, just .79 behind. She had a phenomenal breaststroke leg moving back up to second, but was still .21 behind. With a three-way battle in the freestyle, Khojasteh managed to get to the finish first, winning in 2:03.11. The top three girls were within one second of each other the entire race.
Other Harker top eight finishes of the meet included the girls 200 medley relay of Siegel, Ma, V. Wong and J. Khojasteh, which finished sixth; the boys 200 medley relay of K. Khojasteh, Clifford, Neubieser and Davis finishing second; along with several individual winners. K. Khojasteh took second in the 100 breaststroke and fourth in the 200 IM; Davis placed second in both the 50 and 100 freestyle; Neubieser came in eighth in the 50 freestyle; the boys 400 free relay of Neubiser, Davis, Khojasteh and Schwartz finished eighth; and V. Wong placed sixth in the 100 breaststroke.
All-American times were achieved this year by the girls 200 medley relay team of Siegel, Ma, V. Wong and J. Khojasteh; J. Khojasteh in the 200 IM and 100 freestyle; Siegel in the 100 backstroke; Davis in the 50 and 100 freestyle; and K. Khojasteh in the 200 IM and 100 breaststroke.
Congratulations to Isabelle Connell, Gr. 9, Michael Chen, Gr. 9, Thomas Enzminger, Gr. 12, and Scott Underwood, Gr. 12, for representing Harker at the CCS Track & Field Prelims at Gilroy High. Connell placed 13th overall in the 800m run, and Chen was the only freshman in CCS to participate in the shot put.
Results: http://www.cifccs.org/playoffs/results/09-10/track%20semifinal%20track%20results.pdf Athletics Awards At the end of year sports banquet, awards were presented for the 2009-2010 sports year. The female athlete of the year was Jessica Khojasteh and the male athlete of the year was Cole Davis. The award for female scholar athlete of the year went to Christina Ma and the male scholar athlete of the year to Stefan Eckhardt. Senior coaches awards were presented to Kelly Chen, Shanthi Rajagopalan, Kelsey Hilbrich, Tiffany Kyi, Manasa Reddy, Vivian Wong, Michael Clifford, Lung Ying-Yu, Mark Roh, Eugene Huang, Aadithya Prakash, Greg Plauck, Ryan Cali and Patrick Smith. This talented group of athletes will be missed next year!
A Harker junior who had traveled to Copenhagen for a world conference on climate change was honored by UNICEF for her dedication to service.
UNICEF named Olivia Zhu, Gr. 11, one of their 128 volunteers to receive the 2010 President’s Volunteer Service Award. Zhu was awarded a gold level standing for dedicating more than 250 hours to working for climate change based on the agenda formed at the Children’s Climate Forum (CCF) in Copenhagen in December 2009.
In Copenhagen, Zhu was one of four students selected by UNICEF USA to attend CCF. She joined others from 40 nations in a weeklong forum to find solutions to global concerns and advance understanding of global issues. During her time there, Zhu visited a Danish school, attended workshops and forged friendships with fellow teenagers who were working toward a common goal.
UNICEF’s President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation established the President’s Volunteer Service Award in 2003. The program honors individuals, families and groups of all ages who have met or exceeded requirements for volunteer service.
Alex Han, Gr. 12 and Revanth Kosaraju, Gr. 10, received special recognition at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), held May 9-14 in downtown San Jose. Han won a $4,000 scholarship from the U.S. Navy and a trip to the London International Youth Science Forum, taking place July 28-Aug. 11. Kosaraju received a $500 award from the American Psychological Association.
The ISEF featured 1,600 finalists from nearly 60 countries. Han and Kosaraju won the privilege to appear at the ISEF at the Synopsys Science and Technology Championship in March; it was the first time since 2007 that Harker had two finalists representing the school. “It is a really big deal to win an award at ISEF since these represent the best projects from around the world,” said upper school science teacher Kate Schafer.
[Update] Andrew Zhou, 2010 valedictorian and member of the United States Physics Team, arrived in College Park, Md., this morning with the other 19 members of the team to begin training camp. Five of these students will be selected to represent the U.S. at the International Physics Olympiad this summer in Zagreb, Croatia. The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) has posted a press release on their website detailing the team’s welcome ceremony.
May 3, 2010 Harker has another physics Olympian! Senior Andrew Zhou has qualified as a member of the 2010 U.S. Physics Olympics Team, only one of 20 nationwide. Seven Harker students were semifinalists; Zhou is the only one to be selected for the team and this is his second time around.
Zhou was a team member in 2009, but was not selected for the final five; Harker alumnus (then senior)Anand Natarajan’09was one of the five selected for the 2009 international squad and won a gold medal in 2009.
Zhou will first attend physics camp May 22-31, then find out if he will be one of five selected for the 41st International Physics Olympiad to be held from July 17-25, 2010, in Zagreb, Croatia, where more than 400 student scholars from 90 nations will test their knowledge in physics.
The U.S. Physics Olympiad Program was started in 1986 by American Association of Physics Teachers to promote and demonstrate academic excellence. Over the past ten years, every U.S. Physics Team member traveling to the International Physics Olympiad has returned with a medal.