Four Harker students were recently named semifinalists in the 2012 Broadcom Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering as Rising Stars (MASTERS) competition. Rishabh Chandra, Jonathan Ma and Rajiv Sancheti, all grade 9, and Venkat Sankar, grade 8, were four of 300 middle school students chosen from nearly 1,500 nationwide entries.
Broadcom MASTERS is a science fair competition in which middle school students enter science and engineering projects at fairs affiliated with the Society for Science and the Public. If their projects are nominated at these fairs, they then submit applications to describe their interests and related careers they are considering. A panel of scientists and engineers then selects the 300 national semifinalists.
Harker’s InvenTeam visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in June for this year’s EurekaFest, an annual event held by Lemelson-MIT for young inventors. New Harker graduates Prag Batra, Sachin Jain and Arihant Jain, along with grade 12 students Shantanu Joshi, Wilbur Yang and Ramakrishnan Menon and grade 11 student Nikhil Dilip, were at the event to showcase the invention that won them funding in this year’s InvenTeam contest. Their project, an aquatic thermoelectric generator that can produce solar energy without the need for expensive panels, won them a $9,110 grant in the fall of last year to build a prototype.
During their time at the event, the team toured MIT’s wind tunnels and fusion lab, and participated in a 20-minute design challenge in which they were randomly placed into teams which were then instructed to build a free-standing structure made with balloons. They also attended presentations that showed them how to market their inventions, and saw presentations by the collegiate and industrial winners of the InvenTeam competition.
On March 7, some of Harker’s middle school and upper school students competed in the Synopsys Championship, a regional competition that showcases achievements in math and science. Harker has been competing in the Synopsys Championship for years in both the junior (grades 6-8) and senior (grades 9-12) categories. The competition draws hundreds of students from all types of schools, and awards and prizes are given in many areas.
In the competition, students work both independently and in teams to answer questions in many areas, including computer science, environmental science, medicine and health, chemistry and biology.
Chris Spenner, an upper school physics and science teacher, said that, “Harker students arrive at Synopsys along a variety of avenues: the research class, the Open Lab program, the Harker-arranged summer internships, and direct mentorship by Harker faculty. A few students pursue research independently of Harker programs.” To qualify, “students completed an application form which was reviewed for procedural safety, ethics and minimum quality standards by Synopsys volunteers. The fair is open to all projects in the sciences and engineering,” Spenner said.
The middle school students performed admirably at the fair. Anika Mohindra, grade 8, won the second award in the botany category, while Sneha Bhetanabhotla, grade 7, took home the first award in the physics category as well as second place for grades 6-8 for the Vacuum Coaters Society. Kristin Ko, grade 8, won the second place award for grades 6-8 for the American Society of Civil Engineers. Rishabh Chandra, grade 8, and Jonathan Ma, grade 8, took first award for the physics category, for their joint project. Both Avi Khemani, grade 7, and Manan Shah, also grade 7, brought home an honorable mention for the environmental sciences category for their project. Michael Zhao, grade 8, took the second award for his project in biochemistry/microbiology. Finally for the middle school, Venkat Sankar, grade 7, took home the first award in the botany category.
The upper school students also performed very well, with 27 students earning awards. Sriram Somosundaram, grade 9, took the first award for the biochemistry/microbiology category, as well as winning first place for the Inez M. Lechner award. Prag Batra, grade 12, took home an honorable mention in the med-immune category as well as a grade 12 individual project award. Stephanie Chen and Kristine Lin took home the second award in the chemistry category for their joint project, while Paulomi Bhattacharya and Eesha Khare, both grade 11, took home awards for outstanding sustainability as well as an honorable mention in the chemistry category for their project. Vikas Bhetanabhotla, grade 10, took home the first award in the physics category. Lucy Cheng, grade 12, took home the first award in the Earth/space sciences category, while Emily Chu, grade 11, and Payal Modi, also grade 11, took home the second award in the environmental sciences category. Another successful joint project was developed by Christopher Fu and Matthew Huang, grade 10 and grade 9 respectively, and it took home an honorable mention award in the physics category. Anika Gupta, grade 10, won the first award in the environmental sciences category. Another upper school student, Rishabh Jain, grade 9, received a second award in the computers/mathematics category. Saachi Jain, grade 10, also took home an award – the first award in the chemistry category.
Revanth Kosaraju, grade 12, took home two awards: an honorable mention in med-immune as well as a first award for biochemistry/microbiology. Neil Movva, grade 9, received first place for the Inez M. Lechner Award. Suchita Nety, grade 11, also placed, and was awarded the second award in the chemistry category. Anika Ridiya-Dixit, grade 11, received a prestigious award – a certificate of achievement from the United States Army for her project in the areas of medicine/health. Upper school student Tara Rezvani, grade 11, took home the first award in the behavioral/social areas. Vikram Sundar, grade 10, won the second award in the bioinformatics category. Vedant Thayagaraj, grade 9, was awarded second in the medicine/health/gerontology category. Sarina Vij, grade 11, also took home an award as a finalist in the Synopsys Outreach Foundation prize. Also at the fair, Albert Wu, grade 12, was awarded first in the bioinformatics category. Finally for the upper school, Stanley Xie, grade 9, took home an honorable mention in the medicine/health/gerontology category, while Samyukta Yagati, also grade 9, was awarded first in the computers/mathematics category.
Harker teams swept the TEAMS (Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics and Science) National Finals for 2012 in both grades 9-10 and grades 11-12 categories. The 2012 challenge had students working on engineering problems involving health care and medicine. Harker’s grade 11-12 team accumulated 156 out of a possible 176 points, finishing just a few points ahead of the second, third and fourth place teams. In the Level 9-10 bracket, Harker edged the second place team by a single point with 138 points. Read more about the exciting April preliminary results.
TEAMS is an annual high school competition challenging students to work collaboratively, applying math and science knowledge in practical, creative ways to solve real engineering problems. Focused on a theme each year, original academic and innovative concepts are developed for the competition based on the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges. The challenges require job-readiness skills such as teamwork, analytical thinking and multidimensional problem-solving.
The history department is pleased to announce the 2012-13 recipients of the John Near and Mitra Family scholar grants, all rising seniors. 2012-13 John Near Scholars: Apricot Tang, Ashvin Swaminathan and Nina Sabharwal. 2012-13 Mitra Family Scholars: Apurva Tandon, Paulomi Bhattacharya, Warren Zhang, Joseph Wang and Shivani Mitra. “Congratulations to all students selected!” said Donna Gilbert, history and social sciences chair.
The $300,000 John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund, in memory of the 31-year veteran of Harker’s teaching staff who passed away in 2009, was made by his parents James and Patricia Near, to, in John Near’s words, “help develop the history department, both through the acquisition of resources and providing growth opportunities for both faculty and students.” Each year, three students receive a grant to pursue an independent historical or social study.
In 2011, Harker parents Samir and Sundari Mitra established The Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities which matches gifts to the annual giving campaign up to a total of $100,000.
More than 400 attendees arrived to experience the 2012 Harker Research Symposium on April 28, which featured some of the most fascinating speakers and presentations in the symposium’s six-year history.
Legendary entrepreneur Vinod Khosla was this year’s morning keynote speaker. “We were very fortunate that someone of Mr. Khosla’s stature would take time from a busy schedule and from a beautiful Saturday to come and share his thoughts with our students,” said science department chair and symposium coordinator Anita Chetty. “I think that what he had to say certainly got us all thinking about the present as well as the future.”
Giving a joint presentation were John West and Atul Butte. West, a Harker parent and CEO of genome analysis company Personalis, was joined by Butte via video conference from Boston. West and Butte, chief of the division of systems medicine and associate professor of pediatrics, medicine and by courtesy, computer science at Stanford University, discussed the collaborative project between a team of Stanford scientists led by Butte and West’s former company, Illumina, to sequence the West family’s DNA. This in turn led to an effort to develop software that would make genome sequencing accessible to more people.
This year’s alumni presentation was given by Jacob Bongers ’07, son of Harker art department chair Jaap Bongers and a 2011 graduate from the University of Southern California. Bongers discussed his passion for archaeology and his related field work and research, which led him to being published in the Journal of Archaeological Science while still an undergraduate. “Archaeology has been a passion of mine since I was a kid and since I have a tremendous amount of experience performing field work and conducting research within the scope of archaeology, I felt like I had a lot offer to anyone interested in learning about this fascinating field of study,” Bongers said. “I also wanted to talk about a field of study that, at Harker, may not get as much press as engineering, biology or medical research.”
Attendance remained high for the duration of the event, and the high caliber of this year’s student presentations kept visitors highly interested. “Every classroom was standing-room only,” Chetty said.
One presenter at this year’s symposium, Alex Najibi, grade 12, said attending last year’s symposium provided the spark for his own interest in research. “I’ve always been interested in science and research, but when I went to the symposium last year, not as a presenter, I was really amazed by how many projects the other students were doing,” he said.
Although he was not sure at first that many people would find his presentation on particle physics engaging or accessible enough, he quickly discovered that his audience found the topic quite compelling. “Particle physics isn’t really the most accessible topic, but I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly nearly everyone understood what I was discussing,” he said.
Because of the expected high attendance, the symposium this year was arranged to create better foot traffic, and a tent was set up between Nichols Hall and Dobbins Hall to display the many impressive poster presentations by upper school students. The Dobbins Hall gallery was set aside for middle school student poster presentations.
Exhibitors occupied the atrium at Nichols Hall, demonstrating many scientific and technological advancements and offering a peek into the kinds of careers that are open to students interested in scientific research. This year’s exhibitors were Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, The Triple Helix, East Bay Cardiovascular and Thoracic Associates, Lumoback, Symmetricom, Twincreeks Technologies, Nvidia, Autodesk, Ericsson, Hunter Laboratories and Rector Porsche Audi.
“The industry piece is very important because it allows our students to see the connection between research and career, research and the economy of our valley,” Chetty said. “The exhibitors were so excited about their companies and their products and their research and development. That enthusiasm was really infectious.”
In addition to the student clubs such as WiSTEM (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and the chemistry club, who were instrumental organizing this year’s event, Chetty was also thankful for the various departments that came together to make sure the Harker Research Symposium had another successful year.
“The symposium recognizes what our teachers and our students do throughout the year, and it’s a celebration of that work,” she said. “But the actual event also brings together the other departments that make our school run: facilities, technology, Office of Communication, the kitchen, the security, all of those departments come together to run this huge event.”
The seventh annual Harker Research Symposium, April 28, will feature renowned entrepreneur and founding CEO of Sun Microsystems Vinod Khosla as its morning keynote speaker. The symposium, running from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., will once again bring Harker students and alumni together at the upper school campus to share their love of scientific research.
The afternoon keynote address will be delivered by two speakers: Dr. Atul Butte, chief of the division of systems medicine and associate professor of pediatrics, medicine and, by courtesy, computer science, at Stanford University and Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital; and John West, Harker parent and CEO of genome analysis company Personalis. Butte was one of four Stanford faculty members who orchestrated a collaboration between the university and Personalis to sequence the DNA of the West family (Anne ’11, Paul, grade 12).
Harker alumnus Jacob Bongers ’07 will also make a special appearance to discuss his experiences conducting and publishing research as an undergraduate student in archaeology at the University of Southern California.
A central component of every Harker Research Symposium is the chance for students to present their research to industry professionals, parents and fellow students. Dozens of talks will be given by Harker upper school students, and more than 30 poster sessions by middle and upper school students will be on display at various points throughout the day. Harker alumni will also deliver talks via video conference from research labs all over the country.
As with last year’s symposium, this year several exhibitors will be offering interactive displays for the hundreds of annual attendees. This year’s exhibitors at posting time include Autodesk, East Bay Cardiovascular Surgeons, Ericsson, Genophen, Hewlett-Packard, Hunter Laboratories, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Rector Motors, Symmetricom and Twin Creeks Technologies.
The Harker Research Symposium is open to all members of the Harker community. Additional information, including a schedule, is available at http://www.harker.org/symposium. For more information on student presentations, contact Harker science department chair Anita Chetty at anitac@harker.org. For exhibitor information, contact symposium@harker.org.
Harker swept both “Best Of” titles at the Test of Engineering, Aptitude, Math & Science (TEAMS) competition at Stanford on Saturday . More than 60 Harker upper school students, freshman through seniors, participated in the annual event. Nationally, more than 14,000 high school students, working in groups of four to eight, spent the day solving problems on real-world engineering issues such as air transportation, bridge design and rehabilitation, flood analysis, solar-powered vehicles, food preservation and more. The competition, broken into two 90-minutes parts, consisted of objective multiple-choice questions related to various engineering situations followed by students describing and defending their solutions from Part I.
Part I answers are scored on competition day and are used to determine local and state standings, as well as eligibility for national scoring. Based on Part I results, Harker swept the two top spots: Best in California grades 9/10 division (20 teams competed) and Best in California grades 11/12 division (34 teams competed). Part II responses are scored at TEAMS for national ranking, which comes out in May.
“Congratulations to all participants!” said Tony Silk, Harker’s TEAMS advisor. The division 9/10 Best in California team, all sophomores, comprisedStephanie Chen, Albert Chu, Jennifer Dai, Chris Fu, Rahul Sridhar, Vikram Sundar, Claudia Tischler and Andy Wang.
The division 11/12 Best in California team, all seniors, comprised Lucy Cheng, Alexander Hsu, Revanth Kosaraju, Ramya Rangan (captain), Pavitra Rengarajan, Katie Siegel, Ananth Subramaniam and Patrick Yang.
The regional Science Bowl held at the NASA AMES Research Center in March was won by Harker’s team of Rishabh Chandra, Jonathan Ma and Michael Zhao, all grade 8, and Aneesh Samineni and David Zhu, both grade 7. This team will be headed to Washington, D.C., in late April to compete at the national competition. “The students have worked extremely hard to earn this title and deserve every bit of this success,” said Vandana Kadam, middle school mathematics department chair.
Upper school students Matthew Huang, grade 9, Stephanie Chen, grade 10 and Christopher Fu, also grade 10, coached the middle school students in preparation for the competition, visiting the middle school campus on Fridays after school. “They have put in an enormous amount of time, effort and energy into training the team and taking them to the top spot,” Kadam said. “They deserve the kudos along with the participants.”
Harker’s Clean Tech team, a new club sponsored by Smriti Koodanjeri, upper school chemistry teacher, came in third at the inaugural Clean Tech Competition Student Challenge on March 20, announced the National Science Teachers Association and Applied Materials, Inc., which sponsored the competition.
The Clean Tech competition is a collaborative student design contest developed to inspire the next generation of leaders and innovators in the field of clean technology. It immerses high school students in real-world challenges that illustrate the powerful potential of clean technology to address problems that confront humanity.
The competition involved students, ages 13-18, from the San Francisco Bay Area and Xi’an, China. The challenge posed to students was “Solar Solution to the Rescue.” Under the guidance of a teacher or other adult team leader, teams of students designed solar-powered solutions to basic human needs identified in the aftermath of a natural disaster.
After identifying a situation, students explored the issue and presented their clean tech solution to a panel of industry and education experts for judging. Harker’s team, which consisted of Maya Sathaye, Shelby Rorabaugh and Lorraine Wong, all grade 11, won third place with its project: A Solar Alternative to Charge Electric Wheelchairs. In addition to the distinction of winning, the team won $1,000 to use toward education.
Students interested in alternative energy may want to attend the upcoming Green Teen Summit on Sat., April 14 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. hosted at Harker’s upper school campus. The student-organized conference for Bay Area high school students interested in environmental activism will feature inspirational speakers and a wealth of resources to help young people get involved with environmental efforts at school and abroad. Tickets are $10 for students and $15 for adults (plus a nominal ticketing fee). A continental breakfast and vegetarian lunch is included in the price of the ticket, which can be purchased at the Green Teen Summit’s Eventbrite page.