In February, lower school math teacher Pat Walsh’s grade 5 students submitted building designs to Aaron Bean ’85, who now works as a general contractor. Bean assessed designs submitted by students in all of Walsh’s classes, and selected a winner from each class to go on a special trip to a building site.
Bean chose Makenzie Tomihiro’s design for its creative design. “The right use of offsets in a building’s shape can really improve the architectural design,” he said. He gave the honorable mention to Kaitlin Hsu, calling her design “beautiful.”
From Walsh’s period 4 class, Bean selected Mateusz Kranz as the winner. “I saw amazing maturity in his design: the proportions of rooms were very good, and even more importantly, the floor plan has flow,” he said. The runner up was Ben Hyver, whose round design impressed Bean. “Does Ben know that a round exterior is the most efficient one to complete? Definitely thinking outside the box!” he exclaimed.
“The 25’ wide by 20’ deep unobstructed space that includes the entry, kitchen, dining and living spaces is really inviting,” Bean said of Tanvi Singh’s design, which was chosen as the period 5 winner. Runner up Akshaya Vemuri created “an example of overall good layout. Akshaya minimizes hallways and uses the space in each room to its fullest potential.” Taylor Kohlmann’s house, with its trampoline room and indoor water slides, was given an honorable mention. “I just love the color and creativity!” Bean said.
Period 7 student Amy Dunphy’s design won for what Bean called its “simple elegance. This is the most versatile floor plan I saw. Amy even thought about the shape of the opening and passageways!” Bean said. Runner up Ania Kranz submitted another “open” design. “Here is another situation where simplicity wins!” said Bean.
Mateusz Kranz was selected as the overall winner from all the classes.
Rising junior Erik Andersen was recently named a member of the United States’ team that will compete in the International Linguistics Olympiad from July 24 – 30 in Pittsburgh, Penn. Andersen was one of six Harker students invited to participate in the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) invitational round, out of 100 high school students nationwide. Other students who participated in the invitational round were rising sophomores Stephanie Chen, Alex Pei and Rahul Sridhar, as well as rising senior Ramya Rangan and recent graduate Richard Chiou. Andersen placed sixth overall to qualify as a member of the U.S. team.
Problems for the Olympiad, Andersen said, are designed to be challenging. During the invitational round, participants had to solve a total of seven problems over a period of five hours, not including a one-hour lunch break. “These are notably difficult and require linguistic theory explanations, testing the ability of each student to think linguistically and come up with a pattern in the problem,” Andersen said.
Andersen, whose interest in linguistics began in grade 8, made it to the NACLO invitational round last year, but did not qualify for the U.S. team. He will be the first Harker student since Anand Natarajan ’09 to compete in the ILO.
Congratulations to rising junior Michaela Kastelman, a rising Junior, who has been accepted into the extremely prestigious and challenging California Summer School for the Arts in Valencia. This four-week intensive program is designed to help augment her dance and movement skills. After sending in her audition tape, she beat out other California applicants in grades 8 to 12.
At the camp, she will study dance history and choreography as well as refine her skills on the dance floor.
Anna Huang ’07 presented an inspiring array of clothing at the California College of the Arts’ annual fashion show. Her collection, named Nympheas, was shown in front of a sold out crowd. More than 800 people were able to view the works of 10 graduating seniors in a tent erected outside of the college to hold the extravaganza.
Huang was able to show off her collection and a piece that she designed specifically for the show, a reversible coat. The coat was designed in line with the show’s theme of “functional gear” that was sustainably designed. Her collection, the capstone project in her study of fashion and design, featured a number of pieces that emphasized elegance and a variety of shapes and silhouettes.
Huang’s Harker fans all look forward to seeing the new pieces that she designs on her next endeavor.
June 13, 2011
Harker’s peripatetic Green Girls made another trip to Washington, D.C., this weekend, and this morning, Mon., June 13, shared a podium with Steven Chu, the United States energy secretary.
The event was a meeting where White House and Congressional officials discussed Building the 21st Century Grid, a report on restructuring the United States’ electrical grid to facilitate growth through the 21st century. John Holden, director of the office of science and technology, opened the meeting and Nancy Sutley, chairperson of the White House council on environmental quality, introduced Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, rising seniors, who shared their story of improving Harker’s energy analysis and consumption with 150-200 audience members. “There were government officials from every level, CEOs of clean tech companies, representatives of the Consumers Union and of private companies there,” said Lapidous.
The two climate crusaders were followed by Thomas James “Tom” Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, and Chu. After the meeting, the two girls attended a breakout session where policy was discussed. “At first it was difficult to understand,” said Lapidous, “but after we started listening it was pretty interesting. At other events they have had a lot of rhetoric; here they were actually being practical,” she continued. “They seemed much more willing to listen to young people,” added Indukuri.
The pair plans to ramp up their outreach this year to get more schools, including Castro Valley High School, Castelleja School and Bellermine College Preparatory, to agree to install smart meters or make other energy consumption changes. The pair is also working on a plan to get more Harker students involved in climate change to ensure a legacy of climate crusaders when they depart a year from now for college.
Lapidous and Indukuri began making a name for themselves as climate activists in their sophomore year. In September 2009 they were two of 25 climate youth leaders selected to attend the Governor’s Global Climate Summit co-hosted by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; in February 2010 the girls spoke at Google’s offices in San Francisco at the annual Teens in Tech Conference; a year later the two spoke at Power Shift ’11 in Washington, D.C., to 8,000 attendees, then had a private meeting with Aneesh Chopra, U.S. chief technology officer in the Obama administration, who blogged about the meeting later that week. For more about Indukuri and Lapidous’ activity, search on either name in Harker News Online
Harker had 10 semifinalists in this year’s competition to become members of the 2011 U.S. Physics Team that will travel to Thailand this summer for the 42nd International Physics Olympiad. Although none of the students qualified for the traveling team, rising senior Albert Wu was selected to attend the training camp in College Park, Md. The other semifinalists were: rising seniors Lucy Cheng, Govinda Dasu, Michelle Deng, Revanth Kosaraju, Ramya Rangan, Pavitra Rengarajan and Patrick Yang, rising junior Ashvin Swaminathan and rising sophomore Kevin Zhu.
The Saratoga campus received a special Earth Day gift: a London Plains tree from the Modern Woodmen of America. Representatives of the group presented the tree to The Harker School to uphold the central tenet of the group’s charter to give back to the community. With the help the Eagle Buddies (sophomore students and their grade 3 buddies) the tree was planted along the border of Rosenthal Field.
Founded in 1883, Modern Woodmen of America is a fraternal society that provides financial services and other benefits to its members, which number more than 750,000 nationwide.
Harker finished first in the California Economics Challenge and third in the National Economics Challenge, held in late May in New York City. The team, consisting of rising seniors Ramya Rangan, Michelle Deng, Nikhil Narayen and Max Isenberg, was selected to go to New York after the team consisting of Rangan, Deng, rising senior Albert Wu and recent graduate Jason Young qualified for the national competition in the national semifinal round via a paper test administered at Harker.
The California Economics Challenge, held in early spring and sponsored by 3M, CCEE and the National Economics Challenge, is geared to recognize what the high school seniors learned in their twelfth-grade economics course. Teacher Peter Itokazu led the winning student teams. The contest attracts 5,000 students from 32 states.
Prior to the national semifinal round, Harker had four teams qualify in the top six statewide. Because Harker could only send one team to the state competition, Rangan, Wu, Young and recent graduate Karthik Dhore represented the school at the state level and won the state championship to advance to the national semifinals.
The San Jose Mercury News announced their boys tennis and volleyball all-stars today and Harker is well represented. Karthik Dhore, just graduated, was named to the First Team All Mercury News Boys Tennis.
“This award is a particular favorite of the production team,” said Laura Lang Ree, performing arts chair and director of “Pippin.” “We are thrilled to receive it for the third time. This was the one award that I really wanted as it highlights the core philosophy of the musical theater department: no stars. The ensemble is the storyteller of a musical and the most important aspect of any show. I was happy!”
Top Honors judges adjudicate about 20 participating Bay Area high schools each year, providing feedback on their productions. Judges then nominate the top schools in a variety of categories and host a Tony-style evening of performances and awards. Harker was nominated for nine awards, including Best Show and Best Leading Actor (John Ammatuna and Daniel Cho, both now graduated, were nominated for Best Leading Actor) giving the cast the privilege of performing live at the awards.
The cast also was one of only five schools to perform at the awards as a nominee for Best Show, performing an awesome rendition of “Magic to Do” which was a huge crowd pleaser, according to Lang Ree. Ammatuna, as a nominee for Best Leading Actor, also performed live (nominee Cho was out of the country).
Judges noted, “This production’s standout star is the ensemble. The choral and background vocals in the songs were strong. As actors, the entire ensemble were constantly acting and reacting to the scene around them in a way that didn’t distract the audience but enhanced the scene enormously. Fantastic work from the entire ensemble.”
The comments went on: “Outstanding energy and animation … Excellent ability to express character and move story forward through dance. Excellent rendition of ‘Morning Glow’ and ‘Finale’ … The ensemble in this show had an incredible overall commitment to the pacing and energy of the show, which was especially evident in the opening number … The cast was a pleasure to watch from start to finish … Loved the energy, the concept, and the commitment that the cast brought to the show.”
Congrats to the entire Harker production team of Catherine Snider, musical director; Brian Larsen, sound engineer/production manager; and Paul Vallerga, scenic designer/technical director, as well as Lang-Ree and the whole student crew and cast!