Congratulations to seniors Jerrica Liao, Daulet Tuleubayev, Vivian Wang and Katherine Zhu for signing letters of intent to play collegiate athletics. Liao will attend Northwestern and compete in fencing; Tuleubayev will stay close and play golf at Stanford; Wang will become a Tiger and swim for Princeton; and Zhu will join the Golden Bear golf team at Cal Berkeley. We look forward to following your careers at the next level. Go Eagles!
This article originally appeared in the summer 2017 issue of Harker Magazine. The winter issue of the Harker Magazine will be in mailboxes at the end of December with great features on computer science, the first year at college, our wonderful BEST program and more!
About 21.5 million children between the ages of 6 and 17 play team sports, according to a 2011 survey by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association. Nearly 40 percent of those are between the ages of 13 and 16. At Harker, nearly 70 percent of students in grades 4-12 participate in the school’s sports program. So, what attracts students to athletics?
We Are Family
A popular acronym in the sports world states: Together Everyone Achieves More. Sports aren’t just about making yourself better or boosting your own stats; they are about putting the team first. As upper school boys and girls golf coach Ie-Chen Cheng stated, “The most successful teams we’ve had are always the ones with team members who understand the importance of team goals.” This unity can be very meaningful to student athletes.
“The bond between teammates is something very unique and special,” stated volleyball and lacrosse player Taylor Iantosca, grade 12. “We go through a lot together: the wins, the losses, the victories, the tragedies, everything. I enjoy being able to contribute to something greater than myself while representing my school.”
Sharing these experiences and spending a lot of time together creates a deep sense of camaraderie and friendship. “Sure, we all like to compete and win,” stated middle and upper school coach Mike Delfino, “but as the years go on, the game results tend to fade a bit from memory. But the friendships made and the overall experience of being part of a team and competing last forever.”
Isabella Spradlin, grade 11, said, “My teammates on the volleyball team know me better than anyone else, because we are required to have such a deep understanding of each other’s personalities and abilities. Throughout the season, we spend so much time practicing and getting to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses so that we can get the best possible outcome in any match or situation.”
If teammates are like a family, then the coaches are like the parents. Harker prides itself on selecting the best possible leaders for every sport. When asked how Harker went from being a new high school in the late 1990s with little success in athletics, to a school that produces numerous WBAL, CCS and state competitors each year, Dan Molin, upper school athletic director, was quick to give praise to one group of people. “It really has to do with our coaches,” he said. “Kids recognize quality and it’s proven with our coaching staff. [The students] buy in and the coach shows them the way.”
The quality of the programs and coaches resulted in a 2015-16 season in which 13 of the upper school’s 20 varsity sports sent teams or individuals to the CCS or NCS playoffs, with one individual advancing to NorCals, and three individuals and one team making it all the way to state. This emphasis on top-notch coaching also has produced success at the middle and lower schools, with nine league championship teams during the 2015-16 season.
But the Harker athletic experience isn’t only about the victories. “We don’t talk about winning, although of course we try to win, but that’s not the ultimate barometer,” said Molin.
However, when individuals unite for a common goal, like a family, “it increases their chance of succeeding because they learn to have each other’s backs,” stated Karriem Stinson, lower and middle school assistant athletic director.
Have Some Fun
“First off, we want to make sure the kids are having fun,” stated Molin, regarding the mission of Harker’s athletic department. Athletics allows students to escape the books and classrooms for a short time; it gives their minds a break from academics and allows them to concentrate on a completely different area.
“In an academic environment like Harker, [sports] is the break that a lot of them need in the day,” stated Brighid Wood, a middle school coach and assistant to the athletic directors.
“Basketball is my outlet,” said Jordan Thompson, grade 12. “I can forget all my responsibilities and just focus on the game.”
Soccer and volleyball player Aria Wong, grade 8, agrees. “Having something to do after school lets me forget about tests and homework and lose myself on the field,” she said.
Rosh Roy, grade 8, who plays flag football, basketball, soccer and runs track, added, “I like sports because it lets me be free and also lets me share memories with my friends.” While some students simply want to have fun, others find great satisfaction in succeeding in sports.
“My favorite aspect of sports was simply the opportunity to accomplish something unique,” stated Shrish Dwivedi ’15, an accomplished golfer at Harker who now plays at Duke University. “Academic pursuits afford a self-satisfaction that is extremely fulfilling; however, athletic accomplishments provide an incomparable feeling that I find highly enjoyable.”
Growing from the Inside
Perhaps the most important benefit of competing in sports is the personal growth each athlete experiences. “Athletics help children understand a lot about themselves. You’re looking well beyond the Xs and Os,” said Wood. “You’re looking at the actual child. You’re helping them grow as a human being.”
When a coach can lift up a child like that, everyone wins. Competing in sports also gives students the opportunity to learn how to fail, as well as how to deal with not being the best at an activity. In a recent article for Observer.com, titled “How Playing Sports, Even Poorly, Can Make You More Successful in Business,” author Judy Mandell cited psychologist Robert Troutwine: “To persevere when one is not good at something shows a great deal of character. To continue to strive under conditions of failure shows determination, the ability to handle frustration and resiliency.”
Anthony Contreras, grade 11, explained that sports can help athletes grow in the face of adversity and use this growth in other areas: “Sports has shown me how to handle difficult situations and to how to properly learn from my mistakes. Everything that I have learned from sports carries on to my personal and student life.” This personal growth isn’t just a handy trait that helps someone be a good person – it can be useful in the professional world as well.
Mandell continued in her article citing Rachel Gary, director of media strategies and communications at ONE World Sports: “Many of the traits needed to succeed in sports are similar to those needed to succeed in business, including goal-setting, confidence, discipline and leadership skills.” These skills, along with others, have helped Kristina Bither ’09 in her medical career. “Now working in the emergency department, I am able to stay calm and focused when situations get stressful,” she said. “I know the importance of coming together to work as a team and stepping up to be a leader when it is needed.”
Theresa “Smitty” Smith, lower and middle school athletic director, summed up what it’s like being part of the Harker athletic department: “There are little victories every day.” Whether it’s seeing the athletes growing as a family, growing as individuals or just having some fun, the victories on and off the field, court or pool show why teens continue to flock to sports.
On Thursday and Friday of last week, middle schoolers made “kindness rocks” containing positive messages in the spirit of Veterans Day and World Kindness Day. Advisors used non-toxic spray paint to color the rocks and, following a discussion of the meaning of the activity, students wrote messages on the rocks, which were later placed in various spots around the middle school campus.
The project was part of a global effort to inspire people to create their own rocks and “recruit every person who stumbles upon [them] to join in the pursuit of inspiring others through random acts of kindness.” As an added bonus, each class enjoyed free dress on their respective rock painting days!
Last week, fifth graders headed up to the Marin Headlands for the annual class trip, during which they took in the breathtaking views offered by the hilly destination, located just across the Golden Gate Bridge.
The students, separated into hiking groups, headed off to various locations around the area. At the Marine Mammal Center, students visited local animals that were being treated for illness. Other students hiked down to the beach for an up-close look at the ocean, while another group enjoyed the indoor touch pools set up by the environmental education organization NatureBridge.
During their afternoon free time, students socialized at their dormitories and played sports such as basketball, soccer and volleyball. Students also braved the wind and rain for an evening hike, in which they traveled to the beach to view the noctiluca, a bioluminescent species of dinoflagellates. Other stops during the trip were Hawk Hill and a local lighthouse. Students also went on a series of hikes around the area, which presented ample opportunities to experience the Marin Headlands’ natural wonders.
The speech and debate team is off to an amazing start this season. The team has competed at 15 tournaments this season locally and in Texas, Florida, Iowa and Southern California. Already the team has proven to be nationally competitive across all of the events we participate in, with multiple students winning awards at national competitions. When asked about the keys to the team’s success, coach Greg Achten explained, “I have been very impressed with how hard our students have worked this year. In all of the events, we lost very talented seniors to graduation, but our returning students have really stepped up this year and demonstrated tremendous leadership.”
In policy debate, we have had standout performances by Jacob Ohana and Alan Hughes, both grade 12, who did so well at the prestigious St. Mark’s tournament that they are partly qualified for the Tournament of Champions. Maddie Huynh, grade 10, and Andy Lee, grade 9, made it to the final round of a sophomore round robin. Megan Huynh, grade 12, Anusha Kuppahally, grade 11, Esha Deokar, grade 11, Deven Parikh, grade 9, Jason Lin, grade 9 and Jai Bahri, grade 10, also have all won awards in policy. The year-long topic in policy debate is about federal education reform. Our students advocate that the Supreme Court needs to guarantee unauthorized migrants a right to education.
The individual events competitors also have had an outstanding season. Avi Gulati, grade 10 and Haris Hosseini, grade 11, have each won first place in original oratory and made it to the final round multiple times. Gulati also has made it to the final round of extemporaneous speaking, along with David Feng, grade 10. Nikhil Dharmaraj, grade 11, qualified for finals in original oratory. Nikki Solanki, grade 10, has made multiple final-round appearances in dramatic interpretation and programmed oral interpretation.
In Lincoln-Douglas debate, Serena Lu, grade 12, was invited to compete in an elite round robin at Presentation High School. Karoun Kaushik, grade 8, had a remarkable performance in the junior varsity division of the Presentation tournament, where he took first place! Harker also had a fabulous showing at the Harvard-Westlake tournament. Lauren Fu, Sachin Shah and Quentin Clark, all grade 10, Akshay Manglik and Aditya Tadimeti, both grade 9, and Anshul Reddy, grade 8, all made it to elimination rounds. The Lincoln-Douglas debaters are researching and arguing about whether wealthy nations are morally obligated to provide poorer countries with development assistance.
In public forum debate, Amanda Cheung and Annie Ma, both grade 10, have reached elimination rounds. The grade 11 duo of Clarissa Wang and Cindy Wang have been invited to two exclusive round robins and have represented the school in elimination rounds across the country. The public forum community is debating the very timely topic of universal background checks for gun sales.
In congressional debate, Andrew Sun, grade 9, and David Feng, grade 10, performed well enough at the University of Florida to earn their first bids to the Tournament of Champions. Jason Huang, grade 11, already has had such a great season that he is fully qualified to the Tournament of Champions. Congressional debaters argue about a wide variety of topics and must be very tuned into current events to be successful.
The coaches also have been incredibly proud of how well the students have operated as a cohesive team. There have been many instances where students who were eliminated from a competition immediately turned around to coach teammates who advanced. More experienced students have also done a great job of mentoring newer students before tournaments. Coach Scott Odekirk noted, “The friendly and supportive atmosphere of the team is on display at tournament. Nobody is eliminated until everyone is eliminated. We cheer each other on and lift each other when we are down. Honestly, it is quite inspiring.”
The Harker football team made history twice last Saturday as it both hosted and won the first ever football playoff game with a 56-0 thrashing of visiting Sonoma Valley High. Marcus Tymous, grade 11, scored three rushing TDs; Aaron Smith, grade 11, added two TDs; Devin Keller, grade 10, added a rushing score; and Jared Anderson, grade 11, caught a 56-yard TD pass from Nate Kelly, grade 12, and later returned a punt 79 yards for a score. Once again, the Eagle D was ferocious all night, pitching another shutout. The Eagles will host the Piedmont Highlanders this Friday at 7 p.m.
Cross Country
Harker was represented by five runners at the CCS Cross Country Finals this past Saturday. The boys were represented by Ryan Adolf, grade 11, Arya Maheshwari, grade 9, and Aditya Singhvi, grade 9, who finished off their fine seasons. The top two finishes of the day belonged to the girls, as Lilia Gonzales, grade 11, finished 56 out of 96 D4 runners, and Anna Weirich, grade 9, took home a seventh place finish in D4, qualifying her for the state finals on Nov. 25 in Fresno.
Girls Tennis
The girls tennis team won its opening CCS matchup with Stevenson 5-2 last week. However, the team’s season came to an end the next day as its second-round opponent, Monta Vista, got the best of the Eagles with the 6-1 win. But this Tuesday, Sachi Bajaj, grade 9, and the doubles team of Gina Partridge, grade 10, and Rachel Broweleit, grade 10, begin their CCS journey at Bay Club Courtside in Los Gatos.
CCS Honors
Congratulations to the Harker boys cross country and boys water polo teams as they were recently honored as CCS Fall Scholastic Championship Teams. Of all the CCS teams in their respective sports, boys cross country had the highest team GPA at 3.9430 and boys water polo was second in their sport with a 3.8150. Great job giving it your all in your sport and in the classroom! Go Eagles!
Last month, Kathy Peng’s grade 7 science students made fidget spinners as a lesson in Newton’s laws of motion. Peng prepared the exercise as a challenge in which teams of students designed and created their own version of the toy, which became popular this past spring. Users spin the toy using one of the prongs that protrude from its center.
Each team was tasked with creating a fidget spinner that spun for as long as possible. Teams were given two weeks to complete the project, during which they had access to the 3D printers at the middle school campus Innovation Lab. Students also created analysis documents tracking their design, testing and iteration processes, which enabled them to “explain the physics behind their project, and reflect on their group’s teamwork, design and testing process and future ideas,” Peng said.
Peng designed and executed the fidget spinner project as part of the LID (Learning, Innovation and Design) Grant program, which provides opportunities for teachers to bolster their teaching methods. “Doing a LID grant is doubly awesome because you get to learn a new skill or technology that’s transferable to future instruction, and prepare a lesson or project that you can implement in the coming school year,” said Peng. “So you gain not only theoretical knowledge, which is cool, but you also develop something that is immediately applicable.”
The fidget spinner exercise, Peng hopes, will help students “see how physics is everywhere and that an understanding of science, engineering and design can be not only useful but also fun.”
For more on this subject, check out the winter issue of Harker Magazine coming to mailboxes at the end of December. In the article, Sophomores Speak, the Class of 2016 weighs in on some of the pitfalls, challenges and fun of that first year in college.
At yesterday’s LIFE (Living with Intent, Focus and Enthusiasm) assembly, seniors had the opportunity to hear from Harker alumni about their college experiences, and what to expect and look forward to once they reach college. Nikhil Panu ’13, a recent graduate of Johns Hopkins University, was joined by three additional alumni who spoke to the students via Skype: Haley Tran ’17, currently at Stanford; Sheridan Tobin ’15, now in her third year at the University of Michigan; and Sean Pan ’14, studying at the University of Washington.
Speaking on the idea of getting into the “college of your dreams,” Panu related the story of how he seemed all set to enter MIT upon graduating from Harker before things fell through. Initially disappointed, he eventually ended up at Johns Hopkins, which he found was very receptive to his dream of playing college basketball. “It was really cool to be wanted,” he said. Furthermore, he later found out that MIT might not have been a great fit for him anyway, saying, “You’ll find your ways to make things work.”
Tobin chose Michigan because it matched up with her desire to find a college that offered opportunities to explore many interests. Pan said he did not consider UW a primary option when searching for colleges, but later found out it was the better fit for his goals.
On the topic of adjusting to college life, Tran said, “A big part of adjusting to college is the scheduling,” noting that college students have more autonomy and choices about how to spend their time, which they may find difficult at first. The lessons students learned at Harker on how to schedule time effectively, she said, could prove very useful to them.
The alumni also shared some of the spontaneous things they’ve done so far during their college years. Panu went on a number of road trips and also started a company called Squadz, which he described as “Airbnb for sports and recreation.” He came up with the idea while on a flight from San Francisco to Baltimore. Before his junior year at UW, Pan went on a road trip that hit Montana, Salt Lake City, Tahoe and the Bay Area.
Seniors also were advised on campus safety practices, including making sure that friends stay aware of one another’s status and whereabouts, using apps such as Uber for transportation, and making use of campus support lines and other resources.
Students in attendance also were encouraged to use college as a way to seek out new interests. Panu mentioned the variety of electives that colleges offer, and Tobin mentioned that her goals for college changed after she had spent time exploring opportunities. “What I thought I wanted to do when I was applying was different from what I did,” she said. “Even if you think you know what you want to do, take things because you think they’re interesting.”
Watch for our feature article, Sophomores Speak: That First Year of College, in the upcoming issue of Harker Magazine. It will arrive in mailboxes in late December.
Along with the beautiful Patil Theater in Rothschild Performing Arts Center, there are rehearsal rooms, practice rooms and a top-flight scene shop. These rooms support the Harker Conservatory, which graduates between 35-50 certificate students each year, along with the 350-400 non-certificate students participating in performing arts each day. Moving day in February will be the culmination of years of dreaming and hard work.
Laura Lang-Ree, performing arts chair, noted, “We have been involved in design meetings for years, going on on-site visits at other performing arts centers and giving our input as to what works and what does not work.” She can’t choose just one favorite feature, she said, but is enthralled by the view from center stage, the professional fly system, the view from the balconies and, finally, “my amazing, expansive classroom – all the light and space. I think about teaching in there every day,” she said.
Lang-Ree had some performance-specific goals that the new building and equipment will achieve. “The ability to do technical elements like never before,” she said, “to build on site, fly sets, teach unrestricted with the space and sound benefits.”
Its all about the package. The rehearsal rooms alone are enchanting, Lang-Ree noted, “creating a large space for students to rehearse their music with great sound, and the dressing rooms will be spacious and well-lit – a director’s dream!”
Read on for the extraordinary features that will make the building a wonderful home for Harker performers and productions for decades to come!
The Scene Shop The scene shop includes doors almost 10 feet wide that go to the ceiling so scenery can be moved directly to the stage. After working in a remodeled cafeteria for the last decade, Paul Vallerga, Harker’s scenery master, is delighted with his new shop. “I had quite a bit of input,” Vallerga said. “The most important things I recommended were adequate storage and construction space, proper ventilation, and an adequate station for dealing with paint.
Vallerga noted the main features of the new shop are space and a wide variety of tools for construction and painting. “One interesting feature will be a paint frame,” he said. “This is a wooden frame on one wall on which we can hang backdrops or other scenic units to be finished and/or painted. We will install stage lighting at this frame in order to duplicate the show lighting.”
Vallerga noted the salient points for a good scene shop. “Flexibility and access are the key things. A good shop, like this one, has enough space to assemble and work on fairly large complex units before loading them onstage.
“Probably the most interesting thing here is the fly system. This a counterweighted system of battens which will allow the storage and movement of overhead equipment. I’ve twice attended seminars on the safe use of stage rigging and am looking forward to teaching students about it.” Vallerga noted he is pretty excited to get his hands on the new shop. “I’m actually going to have to remember how to do things I’ve never been able to do at Blackford,” he said. .
Rehearsal and Practice Rooms A room is just a room, unless it is fitted out by acoustical experts, in which case there is a lot going on behind the walls, ceilings and floors. Building out ultra quiet rooms took a collaborative effort between Kevin Hart Architecture, Studio Bondy Architecture, Charles M. Salter Associates and The Shalleck Collaborative (see last month’s story).
Architects and acoustical consultants like different things, said Jason Duty, vice president of Charles M. Salter Associates, Inc., consultants to the architects for acoustical matters. Architects tend to like symmetry, but, “acoustically, if we could lay out the rooms, the rooms would have more random placement of panels,” Duty said. “The two worlds have to agree. When you get to design with a guy like Kevin, we show him what we are thinking of and they show us what they are thinking of, and we go back and forth until we find the right combination to satisfy both worlds,” Duty said.
Left/Right and Up/Down Acoustics Acoustical consultants look at the two dimensions of left and right and up and down to plan their sound reduction strategy. Left and right sound management is about isolating adjacent rooms on the same floor by insulating and spacing out the walls. The new building has two floors of rehearsal and practice rooms and the same methods were used on both sets of rooms. All the rooms have fiberglass insulation in the stud cavities of the sheet rock walls, and the sheet rock is up to three layers thick on each side of the walls of rehearsal and practice rooms – that cuts down a lot of sound.
Practice rooms, the small rooms for individuals or small groups, can be constructed to one of two plans, either limited isolation so the teachers can hear students practicing, or more isolation but with a sound-rated window or windowed door, so teachers can glance into see how students are doing. Harker chose the second type and will have sound-rated doors with windows for the practice rooms.
The practice rooms themselves are stand-alone rooms inside the huge, empty space, called a “tunnel,” about 20 feet wide, between the big rooms. So there is a rehearsal room on either side of the building and practice rooms are built as separate structures in the tunnel, between the big rooms, thus insulating the practice room walls from rehearsal walls with air space.
That spacing reduces transmitted sound so the practice rooms and rehearsal rooms can be used at the same time. Even the placement of the practice rooms between the larger rehearsal rooms creates more air space between the large rehearsal rooms, contributing to the sound control between the large rooms, which are expected to have a larger volume of noise.
The tunnel construction also allows for the mechanical distribution of heating and electricity to the big rooms: ducts and electrical wiring come down from the roof above the tunnels. “That makes the architects happy,” said Duty, “as the rehearsal rooms are nice and clean.”
Up and Down Sound Isolation Up and down sound reduction – sound transmitted through ceilings or floors – addresses two types of sound transmission: airborne sound and impact sound. Airborne sound would include a power saw in the scene shop or music in the big rehearsal room. Impact sound are the vibrations transmitted though solid objects by activities like walking, dancing and certain musical instruments that are supported on the floor. Acoustical reduction is measured in decibels and to reduce noise from above or below, architects can just thicken the cement floor; but going from a 3-inch-thick floor to a 6-inch-thick floor only adds about five decibels of sound reduction; going from 6 to 12 inches of concrete still only adds about another five decibels of sound reduction. A better answer is to use air space and layers of sheeting below the concrete lid, Duty noted.
In a small room, like the practice rooms, designers can use standard 2×4 framing to support the sheet rock ceiling, as is done in normal construction of entryways and bathrooms in condominiums; they hang a false ceiling just below the actual ceiling, leaving an air space.
But, noted Duty, “a dropped gypsum board (drywall) is very challenging in the big rooms. The next nicest thing to do is to use spring isolators that provide a resilient connection to the underside of the floor deck to give both airborne and impact isolation between the floors,” so Duty went with the spring isolators for the four large rehearsal rooms.
To further reduce impact noise, room floors on the second floor will also be “floating” on isolators a few inches above the cement deck. Again, the team could have used just thicker floors, but decided on a wood, floating floor, which uses neoprene “pucks” to support the raised floor, isolating it from the cement subfloor. Fiberglass insulation will be fitted between the neoprene isolators, plywood layered on top followed by the finished wood floor.
This method “helps a lot with impact, but even a little with airborne noise,” noted Duty, “So if a subwoofer is sitting on the floor it has a lot more to go through to disturb the lower rooms.” Duty noted installing the floor isolation is like moving a vibrating cell phone from a table, where the whole tabletop becomes a sounding board, to a couch, where the vibration is almost totally deadened.
Along with controlling excess sound, the flooring design in the big rehearsal room has another important but hidden feature, said Duty. “It was designed by Shalleck Collaborative (who designed the theater components of the building) to be basically a representation of what the stage was supposed to be like: dance should feel the same on (both) floors … pretty typical in rehearsal spaces so lifts and jumps feel the same,” he said.
Windows Are Important
Duty noted the design team has carefully addressed noise coming in and out of the windows. Architects like big glass, he said, “but sound guys see it as a big reflective surface. The adjacent walls typically perform better than the glass. We had to do a big study both on the noise coming out and how far away property lines are, and how much noise from Highway 280 will come into the room. The sound ‘exposure’ drives the glass/window selection,” he said.
Sound Transmission Class (STC) standards are used to choose the proper windows. “Assemblies are likely to be double pane,” said Duty. “The STC covers the whole assembly: the frame and how the glass sits in the frame. If air can get though, so can sound.”
The windows are preconfigured by manufacturers. Designers then choose the appropriate window system. “We just order the correct STC ratings and they show us assemblies that meet those ratings,” said Duty. “The architects pick what they like the look of in terms of finishes.”
Intraroom Acoustics
Aside from isolating the rooms from each other and the outside, attention is given to controlling the sound inside the rooms. “The larger rooms are where it gets interesting,” said Duty. “When people are in a room you can hear the person next to you, but what every conductor battles with is, musicians on either side of the room have to hear each other playing so the left-right ensemble becomes a challenge in the rehearsal rooms,” he said.
The acoustical consultants look at the volume of space (cubic footage), not loudness. “First, there has to be enough square footage so musicians are not sitting on top of each other,” Duty said. “Then you plan to have the room behave itself, with no weird echoes or excessive reverberance, but large enough to provide reasonable reverberance.”
On stage in the Patil Theater, surrounded by orchestra shells, the sound has somewhere to go: out into the audience. In the rehearsal room sound hits the wall behind the conductor. “We have to try to deaden the sound so it is not a mess to stand in all day long, while still having participants hear each other to properly rehearse,” said Duty. Rather than just use absorptive ceiling panels in the rehearsal rooms, the team will install pyramid diffusers on the ceiling, which helps send sound across the room.
Sticking to the Building Codes One early challenge that drew all they players together was fitting in the layers of ceiling and floor isolation along with the heating and cooling machinery on the roof to stay below the maximum height allowed.
Duty, Shalleck reps, Kevin Hart and Studio Bondy reps all gathered in front of a whiteboard to hammer out the height requirement. The group had to get internal dimensions right. That took huge coordination to make everything fit. The group had to track every three-quarter-inch thick piece of drywall or ceiling panel to ensure it all fit in the building code height limitations. “That’s what makes these fun,” said Duty. “There are certain things about these types of projects that make them different than standard office buildings – you have to take a lot more care with all the different pieces.”
The mechanical system provided another challenge to the team. “It sits on the roof so we had to worry about that sound coming into the rehearsal rooms as well as disturbing neighbors,” said Duty.
The Quiet HVAC System The heating and cooling system in the RPAC is specially designed to keep noise to a minimum. The actual machinery for the HVAC system sits on the roof, above the practice area, on isolators to separate it from the building structure and to place it as far from the performance area as possible. The machinery on the roof is screened off both for aesthetic purposes and to shield the sound from neighbors.
The auditorium’s mechanical room is located beneath the lobby. Conditioned air is supplied overhead via a series of ducts that travel from that basement room, through the rear curved walls and up to the underside of the roof of the Patil Theater.
One huge sound reduction factor is that the returns, the big vents that suck “used” air back out of the auditorium to re-heat or re-cool, is not a big noisy vent. Instead, about 250 8-inch return vents have been drilled through the main cement deck — one under nearly every seat and the sheer number and spread of the return vents will ensure there is no rushing of air to disturb the audience or performers.
The Rothschild Performing Art Center will open in February 2018. Watch for information on opening ceremonies!
Harker CareerConnect took eight students to Constellation Research’s Connected Enterprise summit in late October at the Half Moon Bay Ritz-Carlton. It was an engaging conference for students interested in learning more about artificial intelligence and how it will affect the world of business by creating new business models and disruptive technology.
The event featured mind-expanding keynotes, market leaders and fast-follower panel discussions, one-on-one interviews with tech visionaries, and interactive workshops in an intimate executive setting.
This year’s conference explored how the world of artificial intelligence will transform digital business. “The conference was an amazing experience and I got to make new friends and network,” said Ayesha Baweja, grade 10. “The speakers and panelists all had unique and interesting opinions. It gave me a good insight into the current state of technology and I learned many new terms.”
Krishay Mukhija, grade 9, also attended. “The conference was a great opportunity to learn about new technology which are disrupting the market,” he said. “I was able to learn from industry professionals and connect with many individuals.”