Math enthusiasts from 13 schools visited the Harker middle school campus on March 4 for the 16th annual Diana Nichols Math Invitational, in which about 300 students competed, according to math teacher Vandana Kadam.
In the grade 6 individual competition, Harker students claimed all of the top five spots, with Aniketh Tummala placing first, Ethan Liu coming in second, Heidi Lu earning third, Emma Gao placing fourth and Angelina Hu placing fifth. Harker also did well in grade 7 individual, where Stephen Xia took second and Rohan Bhowmik placed fifth. David Dai placed first in the grade 8 individual event to give Harker another top placement.
A total of 50 teams competed in the team event, which was also highly competitive. Harker’s “6R” team of Maria Chrysafis, Varun Fuloria, Emma Gao, Angelina Hu, Ethan Liu, Aniketh Tummala and Michelle Wei took second in the sixth grade category, in which the “6S” team of Ramit Goyal, Chloe Lee, Heidi Lu, Claire Luo, Julie Shi, Cynthia Wang and Ella Yee placed third. In the grade 7 team event, Tiffany Chang, Amruta Dharmapurikar, Alex Lan, Krish Maniar, Ashley Ruan, Grant Sims and Stephen Xia took second place. David Dai, Alice Feng, Angela Jia, Sasvath Ramachandran, Rohan Thakur, Clarice Wang and Emily Zhou earned second place in the grade 8 team event.
The yearly estimation contest challenged students to guess the total number of Harker Math Invitational participants from 2002 to 2017. Thornton Junior High School’s Larry Zhi won the contest with an estimate of 4,040, just shy of the actual number of 4,045! The next closest guess was made by Harker student Angela Jia, grade 8, who estimated 4022.
Middle school scientists were very successful in the 2018 Toshiba/National Science Teachers Association ExploraVision contest, in which teams of students created and submitted scientific research projects.
Two Harker middle school teams won regional recognition in the grades 7-9 division. Eighth graders Rishab Parthasarathy, Rohan Thakur, Michael Tran and William Zhao were regional winners for their project, “A Novel Method to Treat Diabetes Using Specially Designed Nanobots.” In addition, “Gene Editing Just Got Way CRISPR!” a project by eighth graders Akhilesh Chegu, Alex Liou and Deven Shah, was awarded an honorable mention.
Over the next month, regional winners will prepare a website and prototype for the next stage of the competition. Teams with successful entries will be invited to an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., in early June. Good luck!
Five Harker students – senior Debarati Chatterjee, juniors Elizaveta Egorova and Elizabeth Yang, and sophomores Eric Fang and Sofia Kassaras – were recently selected to be featured as part of New Museum Los Gatos’ ArtNow program. The students’ art will be displayed in a juried exhibition from March 29-May 6, along with the works of high school students throughout Santa Clara County.
For the theme of this year’s exhibition, “Perspectives,” each student created a piece exploring various points of view, such as a young person’s outlook on the future, a young girl grappling with the loss of a loved one and the implications of living in an increasingly technologically advanced world.
The exhibition will be held at New Museum Los Gatos, located at 106 E. Main St. in Los Gatos.
Harker Aquila, the upper school’s student news website, was recently named a finalist in the 2018 National Scholastic Press Association’s Online Pacemaker competition. One of the oldest scholastic journalism awards, the Pacemakers are awarded to a range of school media outlets, including newspapers, yearbooks and magazines. Pacemaker candidates are evaluated on criteria including content quality, design and photography.
Judging for the competition will take place until April, as NSPA judges make almost daily visits to Harker Aquila and other finalists’ websites to assess them and determine the winners, which will be announced on April 14.
Journalism teacher Ellen Austin congratulated the Aquila staff and contributors, applauding them for their “hard work all year long.”
Silicon Valley Business Journal, Feb. 23, 2018: A very nice article on the opening of the Rothschild Performing Arts Center and its Patil Theater (see photo).
Golfweek, Feb. 4, 2018: Story on Harker senior Daulet Tuleubayev, who has had a great season and is prepped for college play.
Social Space, Feb. 10, 2018: Harker is mentioned in this article about a water conservationist warrior who “partnered with the Clean Tech Club of the Harker School in the United States to give a talk at their seminar on clean technology and importance of water conservation.”
The boys golf team officially opened its season with a strong fifth place finish out of 25 of the best Bay Area teams at the very competitive Livermore Cowboy Classic. Jaimin Bhagat, grade 10, led the Eagles with a 2-over-par 74. This week, the Eagles take on Crystal Springs Uplands on Tuesday before traveling to Nevada for the Pahrump Valley Invitational on Thursday.
Track
The track and field team opened its season at the Willow Glen Invitational over the weekend. Marcus Tymous, grade 11, Andy Koonmen, grade 11, and Nikki Solanki, grade 10, were each heat winners in their events. Anton Novikov, grade 9, ran his debut Harker 100-meter, placing seventh out of 75 frosh-soph sprinters. The varsity boys 400m relay team of Tymous, Angel Cervantes, grade 12, Mitchell Granados, grade 11, and Anthony Contreras, grade 12, placed fourth to earn medals for the team. Anna Weirich, grade 9, was a medalist in her first Harker race, placing fourth during the coldest part of the day in the 800m. The Eagles are back on the track this Saturday at The King’s Academy Track Classic.
Boys Tennis
The boys tennis team opened its season with a 7-0 win over Sacred Heart Prep, followed by a 5-2 win over Aragon last week. This week, the boys stay busy as they take on Nueva on Monday, Priory on Tuesday, Aptos on Wednesday and Menlo on Thursday.
Boys Volleyball
The boys volleyball team opened its season with a 3-0 win over Saratoga before going 3-1 at the Wilcox Tournament earning the Silver Division Championship. This week, the Eagles host Los Gatos on Wednesday, then travel to Oak Grove on Friday.
Baseball
The baseball team fell to Menlo 11-0 last week, but the Eagles turned what is believed to be the first triple play in school history. Max Lee, grade 10, Zach Hoffman, grade 11, Dominic Cea, grade 12, and Bobby Schick, grade 12, were all involved in this rare baseball feat. This week, the Eagles host Independence High on Monday before traveling to Jefferson High on Thursday.
Softball
The softball team took a tough 13-16 loss to Palo Alto last week in a wild back and forth game. The Eagles host Notre Dame San Jose on Tuesday and travel to Fremont High on Friday.
Swim
The swim team competes next at the Small School Invitational on March 10 at Sacred Heart Prep.
Lacrosse
The lacrosse team opens its season on Tuesday by hosting Salinas High.
On Wednesday, a group of Harker students attended a special listening session held in San Francisco by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan. Last year, the EPA under the Trump administration began the process of ending the Obama-era policy meant to combat climate change.
Accompanied by science teacher Kate Schafer and Spanish teacher Diana Moss, members of Harker’s Green committee – senior Satchi Thockchom, sophomores Jai Bahri, Anvi Banga, Avi Gulati, Alex Shing and Anthony Shing, and freshman Akshay Manglik – all voiced their opposition to the repeal. The concerns voiced by the students included declining air quality, higher occurrence of national disasters and a lower quality of life for future generations.
“I think that attending and speaking at events such as these is supremely important,” Manglik said. “Making your voice heard at all levels of government, regardless of its import, is crucial for inculcating civic activism in a very civically apathetic (although that is quickly changing!) American electorate.”
In addition to giving students the opportunity to voice their concerns to government officials, the event also offered them new insight and perspective on climate change. “Not only did this event give students like us, who otherwise have next to no voice when it comes to national affairs, [a chance to speak] … but it also allowed us to hear personal stories of those directly affected by climate change,” said Bahri.
Students also mentioned that learning about climate change and the Clean Power Plan in their classes and activities at Harker helped them craft more powerful statements for the meeting. “In Green Team and AP government, I’ve learned a lot about renewable energy policy, specifically SB 100, a bill that would require CA to source 50 percent of its energy from renewables by 2030,” Thockchom said. “Because of my engagement with this bill, I could include it in my argument that there are growing factions between federal and state law.”
Despite their busy schedules, regional EPA officials spent time talking to the students. “Directly after the last piece of testimony was given, two of the three EPA listeners came up to us and congratulated us on our speeches,” said Bahri. “To know that what we said actually struck and impacted these people, who had heard hundreds of other pieces of testimony, was an amazing feeling.”
Ten Harker students have moved on to the invitational round of the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad! Seniors Swapnil Garg, Joanna Lin, Rajiv Movva and Derek Yen; juniors Rose Guan, Katherine Tian, Michael Wang and Katherine Zhang; Rishi Dange, grade 10; and Luisa Pan, grade 9, will take part in the next stage of the contest next week for a chance at eligibility to compete in the International Linguistics Olympiad in Prague this summer.
About 1,700 students compete in NACLO every year, solving linguistic puzzles developed by professionals in various linguistic fields. Problems tackled during the contest include translating languages into English, solving arithmetic problems written in other languages, and deciphering writing systems and using them to compose a text. Congratulations and best of luck to these 10 next week!
Last month, senior Swapnil Garg was invited to participate in the Romanian Master of Mathematics competition, held Feb. 21-26 in Bucharest. He followed up this already-impressive feat by being one of just 10 competitors worldwide to win a gold medal. Garg’s performance in the competition also helped the United States team take first place overall. Receiving an invitation to RMM is a major achievement for math students, who must first perform well enough in the team selection test (TST) or team selection exam (TSE), which is taken by students who place among the top competitors in the USA Mathematical Olympiad.
Sophomore Avi Gulati achieved one of his dreams at the Cal High School Speech and Debate Tournament, held Feb. 17-19, by taking first place in original oratory. Not only does this performance make Galati a contender for the national championship, but he also got to speak to a huge audience on a stage that has featured many speech and debate legends. The whole team is very proud of this accomplishment. Huge congrats to Avi!