This report submitted by Vandana Kadam, Harker math teacher. Kadam coached the state championship team and will coach them for the national competition. This is her fourth competition; in 2011, she led the California team to the national championship.
Harker’s team is the 2014 state MathCounts champion, a repeat of 2008 and 2011 victories for Harker.
Last Saturday, Harker’s MathCounts team was represented at the state MathCounts competition by Jimmy Lin, Rajiv Movva, Shaya Zarkesh, all grade 8, and Katherine Tian, grade 7. In addition to the Harker team members, Jerry Chen, grade 8, went in as an independent competitor. Everyone performed exceptionally well.
Movva placed second among the top 10 individuals and will represent California in the national competition to be held May 8-10 in Orlando, Fla. Zarkesh placed 14th and Lin was ranked 23rd (just two points behind Zarkesh).
It was a tough competition, with Cupertino, Redwood and Miller schools also fielding extremely strong teams. Harker beat defending state champion William Hopkins School from Fremont, and also passed champions Miller and Redwood to clinch the No. 1 spot. The point separation between the top four teams was small so it was a nail-biting finish for Harker, giving it the flavor of March Madness! Harker had the best performance of all the teams in the entire state.
The top four teams were all from the Santa Clara chapter, with three more teams from this chapter among the top 10 teams in the Northern California competition.
The top 175 students (34 teams, including all chapter champions, and 39 top independents) from 14 different chapters from Northern California participated in the competition at Stanford.
A similar number of students from 12 different chapters from Southern California participated in the same contest held on March 15 at University of California, Irvine. The top 10 students were recognized at each of these venues. Four top students from these 300-plus students (both venues) were chosen to be part of the California team to go to the national MathCounts competition in Orlando.
All four of these toppers came from Northern California and, as hard as it is to believe, three of these students are from our Santa Clara chapter. There was a tie for first place with four students scoring 43 out of 46 points. (Rankings were then determined based on which problems they had missed, giving more weight to harder problems.) Movva was one of the students who scored 43. Joining Movva in representing California at the national competition will be students from Cupertino Middle School, Raymond J. Fisher Middle School in Los Gatos and Harvest Park Middle School in Pleasanton.
Saturday’s success is highly encouraging. Most of these students have been with the MathCounts program for two years and the title of California state champions is well deserved for each one of them. This is an incredible achievement for the students and for the school.
Please congratulate them on their accomplishment, and thank you all for your support.
On March 2, Harker held the 13th annual Diana Nichols Math Invitational for grades 6-8. More than 300 students from 16 schools attended, including 52 competing teams and four non-competing teams.
In the individual grade 6 event, Harker students Cynthia Chen and Jeffrey Kwan took first and fourth place, respectively. Meanwhile, Rose Guan and Katherine Zhang took first and third place, respectively, in the individual grade 7 event.
In the team contests, Harker’s grade 6 team of Gabriel Chai, Cynthia Chen, Grace Huang, Matthew Jin, Jeffrey Kwan, Eileen Li and Vani Mohindra took second place. The grade 7 team of Rose Guan, Jason Huang, Leon Lu, Kaushik Shivakumar, Cindy Wang, Alexander Young and Katherine Zhang took first in their contest. Finally Harker’s grade 8 team of Michael Kwan, Edgar Lin, Sahana Srinivasan, David Wen and Randy Zhao finished second in the grade 8 team event.
Five teams of Harker upper school students – 40 students in all – competed in a regional Test of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics and Science (TEAMS) competition in late February. The TEAMS competition challenges students to collaborate to solve real-world engineering problems that test their knowledge of math and science.
At the event, held at San Jose State University, Harker won the top spots in both the grades 9-10 and grades 11-12 levels.
The “Harker D” team – made up of Rishabh Chandra, Jonathan Dai, Lawrence Li, Jonathan Ma, Anika Mohindra, Emily Pan, Michael Zhao and Jessica Zhu, all grade 10 – took first place in the grades 9-10 category. Taking second place in this category was the “Harker E” team of freshmen Kai-Siang Ang, Neymika Jain, Evani Radiya-Dixit, Venkat Sankar, Manan Shah, Peter Wu and David Zhu and sophomore Stanley Zhao.
First place in the grades 11-12 category went to the “Harker B” team of Andrew Jin, David Lin, Cindy Liu, Steven Wang, Rachel Wu, Stanley Xie, Leo Yu and Andrew Zhang, all grade 11. In second place was the “Harker A” team, comprising juniors Billy Bloomquist, Patrick Lin, Matthew Huang, Nitya Mani, Sachin Peddada, Vivek Sriram, Helen Wu and Samyukta Yagati.
Once the scores from this and other TEAMS competitions are tallied, the highest-scoring teams from California will move on to the national competition, held in July in Washington, D.C.
This story was submitted by Harker middle school math teacher Vandana Kadam.
Harker students had great success at the Mathcounts chapter level contest in mid-February. Harker brought a team of four students, as well as six others who participated as individuals. This year, seven grade 8 and three grade 7 students represented Harker. The team comprised Jimmy Lin, Rajiv Movva and Shaya Zarkesh, all grade 8, and Katherine Tian, grade 7.
The individual participants were grade 8 students Jerry Chen, Michael Kwan, Jeffrey Ma and and Randy Zhao, as well as grade 7 students Rose Guan and Cindy Wang. Everyone performed exceptionally well. The Santa Clara Valley Chapter is known to be the toughest chapter for Mathcounts nationwide, with about 430 students from 52 schools participating. Harker’s team placed fourth in the chapter behind Miller Middle School, Cupertino Middle School and Redwood Middle School, who were all within three points of each another. Harker’s team will head to the state competition on March 22 at Stanford University.
In addition to the four team members, Chen will go to the state competition as an individual participant (not on the regular team) due to his excellent performance at the chapter competition. Also noteworthy is that Movva placed first in the countdown round, in which a group of students is given 45 seconds to answer a question. The student who buzzes first gets to answer and, if they answer correctly, they move to the next round. Prior to the final round, there were several rounds where the first student to answer two out of three problems correctly was declared the winner. In the Santa Clara Valley Chapter, students buzz within the first three seconds of the question being shown on the projector, creating pressure to buzz quickly and give the correct answer. The students worked very hard to reach this level of success, even attending weekend training sessions and after-school sessions since September.
In November, Harker students participated and ranked in numerous math competitions, both individually and as teams.
On Nov. 7, Harker tied for second place nationwide with a score of 78 in the National Assessment Team Scramble, a 100-problem, 30-minute team contest. Students collaborated after school on the questions, which covered a broad range of math topics.
In addition, Harker continued to do well in Interstellar, an online math contest endorsed by the Math Association of America and run by American Math Competitions. The contest, implemented this year, differs from traditional math tests in its online, round-robin format.
“Interstellar isn’t all that different from other contests, but I’ve made typos when putting in my answer, so you do have to be more careful,” said Patrick Lin, grade 11. “We’ve consistently been getting top finishes each week, so we should hopefully go pretty far in the contest.”
Harker defeated Morgantown High School, Grand Blanc High School and BASIS Tucson North to reach the octofinals in their division. The team is currently ranked second nationwide.
In addition, the first round of the Mandelbrot competition, a five-round individual contest, was held Nov. 4. Students chose between the regional test and the more difficult national test.
In national rankings, Richard Yi, grade 10, and seniors Vikram Sundar and Varun Mohan tied for first place with perfect scores of 14. Junior Ashwath Thirumalai was close behind with a score of 12. In regional rankings, Nitya Mani, grade 11, earned a perfect score, and sophomore Jessica Zhu scored 11. Harker is ranked seventh nationwide based on the scores from the first round.
Meanwhile, 10 students participated in the Santa Clara University High School Mathematics Competition on Nov. 16. The results of the contest have not yet been released.
This story originally appeared in the fall 2013 Harker Quarterly.
Palo Alto Military Academy (PAMA) graduate William Mathews Brooks ’67 found something unique scuba diving in the Indonesian seas: a new species of coral reef fish. The discovery was the cover story in the April edition of the International Journal of Ichthyology.
“The fish is specifically of the goby (Gobiidae) genus,” explained Brooks, who named the species – a brightly colored orange and pink fish with a distinctive bright yellow mid-lateral stripe that runs horizontally down the side of its body – Eviota pamae.
This new species is named pamae in honor of Pamela Scott Rorke, Brooks’ wife and diving companion on the expedition that uncovered the fish.
A successful businessman and entrepreneur, Brooks is well known in adventuring circles for his passion for the outdoors. An avid climber, mountaineer and alpinist, he is a certified international mountain guide and founder of Brooks-Range Mountaineering Equipment Co. He is also a longtime certified scuba diving instructor who began diving in college in the early 1970s.
Brooks was twice decorated by the American Mountain Guides Association, once in 2010 and again in 2012. He collected that organization’s two most prestigious awards, the Presidential Gold Medal and Lifetime Achievement Award, and is its honorary past-president.
He credits Harker with giving him the tools he needed early on to able to lead such a successful life. “PAMA provided me with a wonderful academic and moral base. When I first entered the school I was a struggling student …. By the time I left I excelled and became a merit scholar,” he recalled.
This story was submitted by Harker math teacher Misael Fisico
The American Mathematics Competitions (AMC)
The 2012-13 school year proved to be a winning one for The Harker School as it continued to do very well in the highly regarded American Mathematics Competitions (AMC), which is run by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), responsible for selecting U.S. representatives for various international competitions, such as the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), the China All Girls Mathematical Olympiad and the European Girls Mathematical Olympiad.
AMC is a series of math competitions consisting of the AMC8, AMC10 and the AMC12. Top performing students in these contests are invited to move further to the next stage: the American Invitational Mathematical Examinations (AIME). Finally, students who perform well in the AIME take the proof-based USA Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO).
Last school year, about 250 upper school and middle school students participated in the first event – the AMC10 and the AMC12. Among these students, 50 exceptional students qualified to AIME, which is very unusual as the average number of AIME qualifiers per school is five students or fewer. Harker’s dominance did not end in the AIME. The average number of participants per school for USAMO and the Junior USA Mathematical Olympiad is only one student. However, Harker students reached another milestone by having five USAMO qualifiers and eight junior USAMO qualifiers. The Harker School is ranked second in the nation for having 13 student qualifiers in this very prestigious mathematics tilt. Students Vikram Sundar, grade 12, and Richard Yi, grade 11, were among the top 24 students in the nation and each were given the Honorable Mention Certificates from the USAMO and USAJMO, respectively. Junior Ashwath Thirumalai’s USAMO score also qualified him to the very selective Olympiad training program, the Math Olympiad Summer Program (MOSP). Thirumalai and Sundar both attended this training at the University of Nebraska in June 2013.
AMC10 and AMC12 were designed for high school students but Harker had two middle school students who took these tests and gave many high school students a healthy competition. Grade 7 (now grade 8) AIME qualifiers were Edgar Lin and Jimmy Lin while grade 8 (now grade 9) AIME qualifiers were Peter Wu, David Zhu, Quentin Delepine and Kai Ang.
In the upper school, grade 9 AIME qualifers were Jonathan Dai, Jessica Zhu, Anika Mohindra, Richard Yi, Michael Zhao, Grace Guan, Esther Wang, Jonathan Ma, Lawrence Li, Allison Wang and Rishabh Chandra, all now grade 10. Grade 10 (now grade 11) AIME qualifers were Steven Wang, Nitya Mani, Leo Yu, Stanley Xie, Ashwath Thirumalai, Andrew Zhang, David Lin, Suzy Lou, Matthew Huang, Cindy Liu, Sachin Peddada, Patrick Lin, Madavan Nair, Menghua Rachel Wu, Andrew Jin, Ayush Midha and Vivek Sriram.
Grade 11 AIME qualifiers were Vikas Bhetanabhotla, Vikram Sundar, Varun Mohan, Rahul Sridhar, Alex Pei, Kevin Zhu, Nihal Uppugunduri, Chris Fu, Albert Zhao, Meena Chetty, Andrew Wang, Pranav Batra, Josh Batra, Allen Chen and Gerry Zhou, all now seniors. Harker’s grade 12 AIME qualifier was Ashvin Swaminathan ’13.
The USAMO Harker qualifiers were Vikram Sundar, grade 12, recent graduate Ashvin Swaminathan, Varun Mohan, grade 12, Ashwath Thirumalai, grade 11 and Rahul Sridhar. The eight USAJMO qualifiers were Richard Yi, grade 10, Peter Wu grade 9, Nitya Mani, grade 11, Patrick Lin, grade 11, David Zhu, grade 9, Suzy Lou, grade 11, Michael Zhao, grade 10 and Cindy Liu. The director of the AMC, Steven Dunbar, personally congratulated teacher Misael Fisico for the exceptional and historical performance of the Harker students this school year.
Bay Area Mathematical Olympiad
One of the most highly respected mathematics Olympiads in the country is the Bay Area Mathematical Olympiad (BAMO), which is organized by various mathematicians in the Bay Area. Professors from Stanford University, University of California, San Francisco, University of San Francisco and University of California, Berkeley, are among the active members of this proof-based competition. Harker earned many awards at the BAMO awarding ceremonies, which was held at UC Berkeley on March 10, with David Zhu, grade 9, and Ashwath Thirumalai, grade 11, as the grand winners. A total of 19 Harker students participated in the contest, which was held Feb. 26.
The following awards were given to our students: David Zhu, grand prize winner in BAMO8 category, Ashwath Thirumalai, first place in grade 10 and under category. Honorable mention BAMO12 awards were given to Vikram Sundar, grade 12, Suzy Lou, grade 11, Patrick Lin, grade 11, Nitya Mani, grade 11. Honorable Mention BAMO8 was given to Kai-Siang Ang, grade 9, Peter Wu, grade 9, and Edgar Lin, grade 8.
The Harker middle school placed third in the team competition with members David Zhu, Kai-Siang Ang, and Edgar Lin and the upper school also placed third with members Ashwath Thirumalai, Vikram Sundar and Suzy Lou.
Team participation awards are given to schools with students who are able to prove at least one of the Olympiad problems, and Harker upper school and middle school students placed second with members Lawrence Li, grade 10, Patrick Lin, grade 11, Suzy Lou, grade 11, Nitya Mani, grade 11, Varun Mohan, grade 12, Alex Pei, grade 12, Rahul Sridhar, grade 12, Vikram Sundar, grade 12, Ashwath Thirumalai, grade 11, Nihal Uppugunduri, grade 12, Allison Wang, grade 10, Richard Yi, grade 10, Peter Wu, grade 9, Kai-Siang Ang, grade 8, Edgar Lin, grade 8 and David Zhu, grade 9.
California Mathematics League, Mandelbrot Mathematics Contest
Every school year, the mathematics competitions group in the upper school participates in various competitions sponsored by different mathematics organizations throughout the country. These are usually given in five or six rounds from September to March. Thee contests are used as training materials in preparation for much bigger contests. Two of these contests are the California Mathematics League (CML) and the Mandelbrot Math Contests.
The CML tests were taken by Harker students on Oct. 16, Nov. 13 and Dec. 11, Jan. 15, Feb. 12 and March 12. In each round, students solved six problems. After six rounds, Varun Mohan, grade 12, and Cindy Liu, grade 11, both perfected the contest and were named first place winners, earning Harker its third consecutive first place award.
The annual Mandelbrot competition had five rounds in the competition: Nov. 7, Dec. 5, Jan. 2, Jan. 30 and Feb. 27. Students were given the option of participating in either the national contest or the regional contest.
In the national level competition, the Harker teams made it to the national leaderboard list of the Mandelbrot competitions. The Harker School Team 1’s score of 217 was ranked sixth nationally, while Team 2 had a score of 152 points and was still ranked nationally and is included in leaderboard list.
In the individual events, Harker students Varun Mohan, grade 12, and Ashwath Thirumalai, grade 11, were among the top-performing students with Mohan’s 58 points and Thirumalai’s 54 points.
Alex Pei, grade 12, Rahul Sridhar, grade 12, and Lawrence Li, grade 10, were included in the second tier list of top students.
In the third tier were Vikram Sundar, grade 12, David Lin, grade 11, and Richard Yi, grade 11.
In the Mandelbrot regional contests, California is its own region, known the Redwood Region. In the school standing the two Harker teams were also included in the leaderboard list, with Team 1 ranked fourth with a score of 253 points. The second Harker team had a score 184 points.
In the individual events, Cindy Liu, grade 11, was ranked fourth. Patrick Lin, grade 11, Suzy Lou, grade 11, and Nitya Mani, grade 11, joined Liu in the leaderboard list.
In the second tier list were Andrew Zhang, grade 11, with 44 points and Michael Zhao, grade 10, with 40 points.
The third tier list included Rahul Jayaraman, grade 11, scoring 38 points, Jonathan Ma, grade 10, with 38 points, Vivek Sriram, grade 11, with 34 points and Jessica Zhu, grade 10, scoring 33 points.
National Assessments Contests
Aside from CML and the Mandelbrot math contests, the National Assessment contests were also given in installment form: The Fall Startup Event was the very first contest taken by the Harker Math Club members every year. This was given on Sept. 27, 2012, and it was a fast-paced competition in which individuals have only 30 minutes to solve 100 problems. Harker students received individual awards, helping their team to place second in the nation. Richard Yi, grade 11, placed 1st, Allison Wang (grade 10) was second, and Lawrence Li, grade 10, placed 19th. Ashwath Thirumalai, grade 11, placed eighth, junior Rahul Jayaraman was 10th and juniors Sachin Peddada and Cindy Liu both tied for 21st place and David Lin, grade 11, and Patrick Lin, grade 11, both tied for 23rd place. Vikram Sundar, grade 12, placed fifth and Varun Mohan, grade 12, was 19th.
All members of the Harker Math Group also joined forces from April 10-17 and participated in the Collaborative Problem Solving Contest, also sponsored by the National Assessment Contests. This competition consisted of 15 intricate multipart questions that the entire school club collaborated on for the week. The fun experience got The Harker School a seventh place finish.
Math Prize for Girls Contest/Olympiad
The Mathematics Prize for Girls Contest started in 2009 in New York City, and it has become one of the most sought-after mathematics contests in North America. The first-place winner receives $25,000, the largest monetary math prize in the world. Since its inception, The Harker School girls have been traveling every year either to New York City or to Boston for this very prestigious contest for high school girls. Its goal is “to encourage young women with exceptional potential to become the mathematical and scientific leaders of tomorrow.”
The fourth annual contest was held on Sept. 22, 2012, at MIT, where 263 girls from across the United States and Canada competed for $49,000 in cash prizes. Students who qualified had an AMC 10A score of at least 115.5 points or at least 120 points in the AMC 10B. For students who took the AMC12, girls were invited if they had a score of at least 94.5 points in the AMC12A, or at least 99 points in the AMC 12B. Those scores match the scores needed to qualify for the AIME exam.
Four Harker girls traveled to MIT and participated in this exciting event: honorable mention awardees Cindy Liu, Nitya Mani and Suzy Lou and Lynda Tang ‘13.
After the Math Prize for Girls, the three honorable mention winners were among the top 44 students who were invited to take the 2012 Math Prize Olympiad, which was held Nov. 7, 2012. The Olympiad is a proof-oriented contest, consisting of four problems to be solved in four hours.
The Stanford Mathematics Tournaments, Berkeley Mathematics Tournament and Santa Clara University High School Mathematics Contest
The Harker School participated in interscholastic mathematics competitions as well. The three contests that Harker participated in last school year were the Santa Clara University High School Mathematics Contest on Nov. 12, 2012, the Stanford Mathematics Tournament (SMT) in February and the UC Berkeley Mathematics Tournament (BMT) in late March.
The Santa Clara University contest had nine open-ended problems. The results were released in February and Suzy Lou and Patrick Lin were awarded first place and second place, respectively.
In the SMT, the Harker Omega Team placed sixth overall while placing fifth in the team category. In the individual rounds, Varun Mohan won first place and third awards in the algebra category and advanced topics (precalculus) category, respectively. Nihal Uppugunduri originally tied for second place award in the calculus category and ended up fifth place after tie-breaking questions. During awards ceremony, Uppugunduri’s excitement was so contagious, and he was the picture of a very satisfied student. Albert Zhao, grade 12, also received the seventh place award. In the geometry category, Ashwath Thirumalai and Rahul Sridhar both tied for the eighth place awards.
SMT Harker participants from the Team Alpha were Peter Wu, Albert Zhao, Rahul Jayaraman, Jessica Zhu, Andrew Zhang, Nihal Uppugunduri, David Zhu and Lawrence Li.
Team Omega members were Varun Mohan, Richard Yi, Patrick Lin, Rahul Sridhar, Kevin Zhu, David Lin, Alex Pei and Ashwath Thirumalai.
In the BMT, Harker Team Omega also placed sixth overall. Participants from Harker at the BMT were Patrick Lin, David Lin, Ashwath Thirumalai, Richard Yi, Jessica Zhu, Suzy Lou, Nihal Uppugunduri, Lawrence Li, Allison Wang, Vivek Bharadwaj, Rahul Jayaraman and Kevin Zhu.
Purple Comet Mathematics Meet
The Harker Math Competitions Group also participated in an online mathematics contest last school year, the Purple Comet Mathematics Meet. This international team mathematics competition is designed for middle and high school students, and it was held on April 16. More than 3,000 teams from the United States and 21 other countries participated in this event. Interestingly, the contest was offered in 17 languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, English, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Vietnamese.
Many members of the math club signed up for this event and ended up forming four very strong teams, and each team received an award. The Harker Omega Team received a score of 27 points out of a possible 30 and received the fourth place award. The Harker Sophs Team received 26 points and an honorable mention award. The Harker Frosh Team and the Harker Mixed Team got 24 points and 21 points, respectively and both qualified for honorable mention awards as well.
The T1 Harker Omega Team was composed of Varun Mohan, Ashvin Swaminathan ‘13, Alex Pei, Rahul Sridhar, Nihal Uppugunduri and Vikram Sundar. The T2 Harker Sophs Team was Ashwath Thirumalai, Cindy Liu, Patrick Lin, Suzy Lou, Sachin Peddada and Matthew Huang, grade 11. The T3 Harker Frosh Team was made up of Richard Yi, Allison Wang, Michael Zhao, Lawrence Li, Jessica Zhu, and Grace Guan, grade 10. The T4 Harker Mixed Team was composed of Andrew Zhang, Nitya Mani, Albert Zhao, Jonathan Ma, Vivek Bharadwaj and David Lin.
The CHMMC Caltech Harvey Mudd Math Competition, the Harvard-MIT Math Tournament and The American Regions Mathematics League
In addition to the contests that are officially sponsored by adviser Misael Fisico, members of the Harker Mathematics Competitions Group also participated in other contests outside of the Bay Area. Contestants were eager to join in as many math contests as possible. Thus, they formed alliances with their equally talented math friends from the neighboring schools and they traveled to Southern California and participated in the 2012 Fall CHMMC Caltech Harvey Mudd Math Competition on in November at Harvey Mudd College. Students of the CalTech and Harvey Mudd mathematic clubs sponsored the contest. Teammates Ashwath Thirumalai and Rahul Sridhar received the third honors award while teammates David Lin and Richard Yi received fifth honors award.
These students, together with Nihal Uppugunduri, also traveled to Massachusetts in November for the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament.
Ashwath Thirumalai and Richard Yi were also part of the winning San Francisco Bay Area Team in the recently concluded American Regions Mathematics League (ARML) held at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas in June.
Mexican Mathematical Olympiad
In November, Varun Mohan traveled to Mexico together with the United States team and participated in the Mexican Mathematical Olympiad. He was so proud of his accomplishment since he not only received a silver medal, but was able to express himself verbally and in written form in Spanish. The contest had more than 200 participants and there were many U.S. teams. Mohan’s team had four students from Long Island, Chicago and Virginia. He was just a few points away from the gold medal award and wrote his mathematical proofs in Spanish.
The Harker Mathematics Competitions Group
The Harker Mathematics Competitions Group is student driven. The club conducts various contests during club activities on Wednesdays during long lunch. The contests that are taken on Wednesdays serve as the training/experiences in preparation for the big contests that are usually held in February and March every year. In special events, students are also assigned as team leaders or team captains. Invitations have already been given out for the Math Prize for Girls, which will take place at MIT in early September. Veteran Harker contestants are now forming a team that will compete at the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament that will take place Nov. 9 and Feb. 22, 2014 at MIT, and also the Caltech Harvey Mudd Contest which will happen on Nov. 23, at CalTech.
In late June, middle school math teacher Vandana Kadam traveled to Turkey to participate in the Junior Balkan Mathematical Olympiad (JBMO). It was the first time the U.S. had been invited to compete in the event, and Kadam acted as an observer on a panel of 25 mathematicians who selected problems for the exam that was administered at the JBMO.
“I was one of only two women on this panel,” Kadam said. “It has been a highly rewarding experience for me.”
The United States team placed fourth out of the 21 countries competing in the Olympiad, with all six members of the team earning medals, including three gold, one silver and two bronze. The team had the second-highest number of gold medals behind Turkey, who had four.
This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
More than $8,000 Raised by Annual Cancer Walk; Harker Community Goes the Extra Mile During Walk to Raise Money for Camp Okizu
Students, faculty and family members recently put on their walking shoes for the seventh annual Harker Cancer Walk. The successful schoolwide effort netted more than $8,000 for Camp Okizu. “This will give many young cancer patients a fantastic opportunity to go to camp!” said Cindy Ellis, middle school head. “I know they will also enjoy the many decorated Frisbees from the middle school students while at camp.” The symbolic stroll was held in late March at Blackford. Supplementing cash donations were sales of T-shirts, water bottles, Jamba Juice, baked goodies, temporary tattoos and wrist bands, all of which were sold by volunteers.
The “biggest cancer walk poster ever” was hung on the amphitheater wall from March 25-29 and stood 8 feet high. Advisories also made small, honorary flags for those who have survived or passed away which were then placed in the ground along the walking path.
“The Cancer Walk is truly an effort of the community that I have grown to cherish at Harker,” said Michael Schmidt, organizer, who teaches middle school computer science. “Thank you again for our seventh amazing Cancer Walk.”
Upper School Student Creates Unique Math Program for Children
Like many teens, Urvi Gupta, grade 11, maintains a jam-packed schedule, yet she makes time to give back to her community by providing free math tutoring to K-3 kids at local libraries in San Jose using a unique program she created called OneInMath. The program teaches youngsters simple ways to add, subtract, multiply, divide and understand concepts quickly for math success.
“I designed the free volunteer-run program from the ground up, defining its purpose, goals and developing materials, including 1,862 math problem sheets, teaching instructions, learning videos, program format, volunteer instructions and the logistics of running it,” said Gupta, who teaches as well as independently manages the overall program.
She currently supervises more than 150 kids and 27 high school volunteers across three libraries using the program, which was implemented in November 2011. Now, the popular OneInMath classes – which utilize video instruction in addition to faceto- face volunteer tutoring – have both students and parents excited about learning mathematics.
Gupta was recently honored as Volunteer of the Year from the entire San Jose public library system for her dynamic math program and volunteer efforts. The top honor began with a nomination from local librarian Vidya Kilambi, who had been impressed with Gupta’s program for some time. As a result of her efforts, aside from all the children her program has helped, Gupta received a commendation on June 11 from the City of San Jose for her efforts.
Students Raise Record Amount for the Humane Society
Life just got a little easier for animals at the Humane Society of Silicon Valley, thanks to the efforts of the school’s grade 1 community service project.
The students showed their love for the shelter’s displaced rabbits, dogs and cats by collecting monetary donations, buying needed supplies and making toys for distribution to the shelter.
“We raised about $900 (a new record) and collected more than 80 bags of toys, supplies and food for the animals,” reported the students’ homeroom teacher, Cindy Proctor, who oversaw the project. In addition to monetary donations, items for collection included animal treats, collars, litter, toys, clean blankets, sheets, towels and comforters.
“We would like to express our thanks for the tremendous support and generosity of our Harker families for participating in this project. The donations continue to come in, and we are extremely grateful,” said Proctor.
Blood Drive to Help Remedy Local Blood Shortage
At least 100 locally-based hospital patients desperately in need of blood will be helped, thanks to the annual Harker Blood Drive held at the upper school campus in March.
This year’s successful drive resulted in the collection of 44 total pints, which will benefit the Blood Centers of the Pacific, a nonprofit organization that supplies blood to Northern California hospitals, doctors and patients.
Thirty-nine Harker students, faculty and staff members gave blood at the drive, which was organized by the Red Cross Club, with five people donating double red cells.
GEO Week Raises Funds to Build Schools Overseas
By Zach Jones
The Global Empowerment and Outreach (GEO) student club held its annual GEO week in mid-March, raising nearly $1,000 for Pencils of Promise, an organization that works to build educational programs in poor areas of the world. Some of Pencils of Promise’s efforts include building schools, training teachers and providing supplies. The organization has already completed construction on 110 schools, and 14 are in construction with plans for at least four more.
According to Amie Chien, grade 12, GEO president, the cost to provide a year’s worth of education for a child in one of these areas is just $25. “A pair of jeans from Express is easily $25, a week’s worth of Starbucks every morning, about the same. If we were to give up a little luxury for a week, we could easily find $25 lying around,” she said.
Five Seniors Recognized by National Charity League for Thousands of Volunteer Hours
On March 16, Michelle Douglas, Cristina Jerney, Emily Wang, Amy Grace Wardenburg and Molly Wolfe, all grade 12, were honored by the Heritage Oaks Chapter of the National Charity League, Inc. NCL is a philanthropic organization that fosters mother-daughter relationships through community service, leadership development and cultural experiences. Over the past six years, the five seniors have logged hundreds of volunteer hours (often with their mothers) at many local organizations including the American Cancer Society, Habitat for Humanity – Silicon Valley, Humane Society of Silicon Valley, InnVision, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Sacred Heart Community Services.
In addition to these awards, Wardenburg has received the President’s Volunteer Service Award for volunteering over 100 hours in a calendar year for all six years she has been volunteering, and Wolfe and Jerney have also each received the award in the past. Wardenburg will also be receiving the Senior Service Award, which is given to the graduating senior with the highest cumulative philanthropic hours earned during her years at National Charity League.
Senior Honored by Stanford for Volunteering
Senior Leslie Chan was awarded the Stanford University Medical Center Auxiliary Scholarship in May in recognition of exemplary service and contributions to the C-1 Unit and Junior Volunteer program at Stanford Hospitals and Clinics.
Yesterday, rising senior Urvi Gupta was recognized for the second time this year for an innovative math tutoring program she created in November 2011 when she received a commendation from San Jose City Council members Rose Herrera, Xavier Campos and Kansen Chu.
In April, Gupta was named San Jose Public Library Volunteer of the Year for the creation of a math tutoring program at the San Jose Public Libraries called OneInMath, which assists students in K-3. The program aims to give young math students a solid foundation in mathematics that will help them in their later years. To date, more than 250 students have been helped by OneInMath. Gupta herself has managed the entire program, creating practice sheets and videos, designing the teaching method, training volunteers and more.
“This is a great recognition for Urvi’s hundreds of hours of work and her dedication to the program to help young kids,” said Urvi’s father, Vivek. “It will also be a great recognition of Harker as a school that nurtures the students to be selfless, kind and giving.”