NEWS April 10, 20082

by Stephanie yu

Staff WriterThe annual FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition

of Science and Technology) High School Robotics Sili-con Valley Regional Competitions took place at San Jose State University between March 13 to March 15.

In the intense period of six weeks given to each competitor before a major tournament, the school’s team, Quixilver, worked vigorously to construct its unique robot to compete in the tournament games. Dubbed “FIRST overdrive,” these games occur on a 26 by 64-foot field and consist of a combination between NAS-CAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) and soccer.

During games, opposing robots score points by pushing “trackballs” of 40 diameters in a counterclock-wise direction. Teams whose robots score the most points are declared the winners.

While the dates of March 14 and 15 opened to the public with free admission, only members of the teams attended on March 13. The date was closed to the gen-eral public in order to allow teams to organize practice matches as well as complete the finishing touches on their robots.

“We had some complications with the elevator, which lifts the ball during the tournament. It was too stiff and the pieces weren’t sliding as easily. But we were able to figure out a way to work around it,” Sopho-more BeetaModaressi said.

The tournament officially began on March 14 as “seeding” or qualification matches took place between the various teams. These matches paired teams together ran-domly to compete against other pairs. Schools such as Bellarmine College Prep, Pioneer High School, Lynbrook

High School and Monta Vista High School, as well as two teams from Mexico and one from Alaska, participated.

Quixilver began with a rough start in the morning, scoring lower points than desired. However, the team soon picked itself back up in a comeback fueled by the determination of the hardworking team members.

“I wasn’t very nervous, but I had to really concen-trate on not messing up when I was driving the robot,” Sophomore Nick Zafiropoulos said.

March 15 held a continuation of the games as well as the grueling elimination rounds between noon and 5 p.m. In these last rounds, partnership is chosen by two teams rather than selected for them randomly. Eight alliances are created and each team plays an-other pair for best of two out of three games.

Quixilver, one of the selected teams, played in the eighth seeded alliance. However, the team suffered a defeat in the quarterfinals by the first seeded alliance, who went on to win regionals.

The Awards Ceremony took place after 4:30 p.m., in which the competition presented Quixilver with the Chairman’s Award, FIRST’s most pres-tigious prize. It honors the team judged to have created the best partnership effort amongst the team’s participants, exemplifying the true mean-ing of FIRST.

While the award helps maintain the central focus of the FIRST Robotics Competition, inspiring greater levels of respect for cooperation and good sportsman-ship, it also qualifies the school’s team to advance to nationals. With the prominence of earning the National Chairman’s Award last year, the team is steeling itself for an even tougher challenge—winning the National Chairman’s Award two years in a row.

“We were really happy with our performance at Silicon Valley. The robot performed great; the team performed even better. But we’re looking forward to a competition with 340 teams, so we’ve got a lot of work cut out for us,” Robotics club president Senior AlejandroArambula said.

Robotics = (Chairman’s Award) ²

Courtesy of www.lelandrobotics.com

by Joel ayala

Staff WriterOn April 18, AP, honors and conceptual phys-

ics students will have to say goodbye to their long-term substitute, ThinhTran, Science Dept.

Tran has been teaching Leigh Houston’s, Science Dept., classes since the beginning of sec-ond semester when she went on maternity leave.

A Vietnamese immigrant, Tran grew up dur-ing the Vietnam War and had to worry about the draft while he was a student. “When I was your age I had to pass an exam or go to the front lines,” Tran said.

Luckily, he passed the exam and attended the University of Southern California (USC) after traveling to the US. It was there that he finished his education in chemical engineering and his love of football was born.

“I couldn’t help [loving football],” Tran said. The Trojans went undefeated and student spirit

reached a fever pitch after the Trojans beat Ohio State in the Rose Bowl in 1972, during his fresh-man year of college. “I never had time to go though, because of all my work,” Tran said.

Even though he had been trained to be a uni-versity professor, Tran never considered teaching until his colleagues recognized his skill and asked him if he had ever thought about teaching. He started as a student teacher at Piedmont Hills, and then took other short-term substitution jobs.

His first long-term substitution job was at Pi-oneer where he substituted for a chemistry teacher for a semester while the teacher recovered from triple bypass surgery.

Despite having studied chemical engineering, Tran is actually a lover of physics and math and would have studied physics but “when you grow up in an Asian country your dad tells you what to do; that’s why I’m a chemical engineer,” Tran said.

Continued on P. 10 tran

Students gravitate towards Physics substitute

At their most recent competition at San Jose State University, the school’s robotics team won the prestigious Chairman’s Award for the second year in a row and qualified for the national tournament.

Courtesy of Jenny YangCourtesy of Jenny Yang

The robotics team prepared rigorously in the weeks before their most re-cent competition, staying several hours after school to ensure perfection.

Courtesy of Jenny Yang

NEWS May 2, 20082

by Karen lee anD albert lin

Staff Writer and News EditorAlthough it has only been one month since In-

terim Principal ArdithHeinrich arrived to fill in as principal at the school, she has already taken charge of a great variety of administrative projects.

Heinrich, a retired educator who is temporarily filling the position until the appointment of a new principal for the year 2008-2009, is busy working on the projects former principal Bob Setterlund could not complete before retirement.

Among other things, Heinrich is working on stabilizing the school budget. With funding being spent on projects ranging from the solar panels to the vast sports complex planned in the Pat Tillman stadium, stabilizing the school’s fiscal policy is im-portant on Heinrich’s agenda.

With some teachers leaving next year, the school administration is also looking at hiring educators for the upcoming school year. Interviews are currently being conducted and out of a total of eight positions, six have already been filled.

Along with the departure of several teachers, several administrators are also leaving the school for other positions. Dr. MadeleineVoss, Assist. Principal of Activities, is being transferred to an-other school.

CliffMitchell, Assist. Principal of Instruc-tion, is leaving to become Principal of Hoover Middle School and is being replaced by Dorothy Kennedy, the current principal of Hoover Mid-dle School.

“It’s very difficult...it’s the first school where I’ve felt like it’s the place to be...we’re riding a roll-ercoaster of emotions right now,” Mitchell said.

The school is also slated to receive new techno-logical renovations. Setterlund and Mitchell were working to complete a sound system for the caf-

eteria that will be installed over the summer and a video sign similar to the one on display at Bret Harte Middle School will also be purchased for the front side of the school.

Heinrich has also been working closely with MichaelMartinez, Assist. Principal of Discipline, in finishing the construction of solar panels in the parking lot and ensuring that traffic runs smoothly during the rush hour period before and after school.

One of the grander projects is the opening of the sports complex on May 10. The 1100-sq. foot project is a joint venture with the City of San Jose and will include a concession stand, stadium lights and restroom facilities as well as a city office in the area surrounding the Pat Tillman stadium.

Because the city will have access to the facili-ties on the weekends, the school will possibly be able to bring in more revenue through this project.

“Mr. Setterlund left Leland with wonderful projects that will be completed for next year,” Hein-rich said.

Although the work is never-ending, Heinrich has taken time to meet with students and faculty members since her arrival at the school.

“It’s absolutely amazing being here again. It feels like a homecoming since I taught here in the 80s.” Heinrich said.

Among her many enjoyable moments at the school, one of the more memorable meetings was in one routine classroom visit.

“Visiting classes on April 18 to talk about stu-dents’ favorite issues, parking and testing, was ac-tually very fun. There was even applause, despite Mr. [Andrew]Holland’s, English Dept., attempt to claim credit and the applause,” Heinrich said with a smile.

Because she has already retired, the principal for the 2008-2009 school year will not be Heinrich.

Career Day offers students chance to expand horizons

Correction: A mistake appeared in the previous issue of The Charger Account in the article about the school’s Robotics Team, Quixilver. Presently, the team has not won the National Chairman’s Award; they won the Re-gional Chairman’s Award last year and this year as well. Additionally, the article about the speech and debate team did not mention that Senior VivekMusinipally and Junior RyanKuo also qualified to Nationals.

Interim principal finds her niche

Continued from P. 1 FaShion “It was really out of the box this year and differently funny, especially when they were pretending to be cats crawling on the runway and when they turned into toucans. I really enjoyed it; they did a really good job,” Junior YoungeunNa said. Act II followed the ten-minute intermission and began with a representation of Las Vegas. Victoria Kim, English Dept., Joe Kerwin, History Dept., Megan Maclise, English Dept., PattiYoung, Bank, and KenNguyen, English Dept., (as shown above) cooperated to model the Spice Girls, a trendy group of female pop singers during the 1990s. Subsequently, the “Houston” segment of country clothing featured cowboy boots, hats and bandanas, ending with a final performance of line dancing. The “Beverly Hills” segment en-sued, incorporating an exclusive routine for girls’ fashions and outfits derived from the classic Disney princesses, the TV series Desperate Housewives, the movie Clueless and more. However, “Amsterdam” reciprocated and introduced boys’ fashion including the famous Jabbawockeez masks from America’s Best Dance Crew. The last segment, “Club Par-is,” finished with a romantic spectacle of formal attire, prom dresses and tuxedos. Last of all, a final “farewell” and “thank you” statement made by the Entertainment Commission Heads took place. The Entertainment Chairs, Sophomore MelodyRasouli, Junior EshaKamboj and Seniors PatriciaLopes and NatalieHerz, took a bow before the curtain, concluding the Fashion Show of 2008. “The Fashion Show was better than I expected and it was truly wonderful. Those girls worked really hard on the show and it was truly visible,” Junior TrishaParab said.

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Summer ClassesStarting on June 2, 16 & 30 by janice chen anD brian yee

Editor in Chief and News Editor On April 9, the school provided op-portunities for students to learn more about prospective careers with its annual Career Day. Career Day began in 1992 and has oc-curred every other year since then. The number of speakers has grown tremen-dously from having only one speaker per panel to around four per panel. This year has been the largest group of speakers so far, totaling over 160 speakers. Several weeks prior, an assessment paper was given to each student to fill out. This assessment aimed to provide potential careers given their interests. “It’s about a process where you learn about your interests and it ties into the career and college unit,” Joan Albers, Career Center, said. Some students were unsure of their future career paths. However, many stu-dents, such as Sophomore AmyZhang, said that “it was good to hear stories about the different careers.” Others found that the experience con-firmed their interest in a certain field. “I liked the sports and recreation panelists because they really got into it. The sports panel really persuaded me to go into physical therapy,” Sophomore NinaCon-sulsaid. “I hope that they learned about nine careers and I hope that it sparked their in-terest and finds a good career that matches them. It’s about helping them prepare for the future,” Albers said. While the most popular committee was in the medical field, other areas such as psychology and engineering also drew large amounts of students.

One of the panels was the Recreation/Sports, which included Kevin Frandsen, a San Francisco Giants player and son of David Frandsen, Athletic Dept., and David Malley, a former San Jose Sharks player. In K. Frandsen’s panel, the stu-dents enjoyed talking with the panelists in a large group, then split off into four small-er groups so students could talk to each panelist one-on-one. Another of the sports panelists, Johnny Mouradian, said, “It’s real important to share about where we are today [and] how we got there. Students are trying to figure out what they want to do. The message is: to get where you are you have to take your-self [away from] work, otherwise you will be too consumed.”

Veternarian Barbara Lee shows an X-ray of a cat.

Yee Photo