Issue 5 | February 6, 20132 HOOFBEAT NEWS

MN de!es gravity with All-Millard drama festival

As the curtain opens, a set is revealed. MN actors get into their positions and begin reciting their lines from this year’s winter play, Defying Gravity. When they !nish, the curtain closes, and the same exact scene repeats, only with di"erent actors from an-other Millard high school.

#is was the common occurrence at the All-Millard Drama Festival. #e festi-val, which took place on Jan. 26th at MN, was in full swing for its second year in a row.

“When the directors at Millard West, South, and I met to evaluate the curricu-lum, we wanted to give the kids an opportunity to receive feedback. We also formu-lated it to perform and share, so students can see what the

A: Senior Cole Edick converses at the All Millard Drama festival on Jan 26th. Edick played a NASA engineer. Photo by Alan Davis

B: Senior Justin Couch and Sophomore Peyton Parks act in the festival. Parks won an award for her acting. Photo by Alan Davis

alan davisopinions editor

Robotics Club:Building their way to the top

#e playing !eld is si-lent for a moment, sunlight streaming into the small room onto colorful plastic troughs and little stacks of beanbags. And then, a whizzing, silver piece of machinery comes to life—scooping, dumping, and twirling in a matter of secondsMN’s robotics club members make this look easy.

#e MN Robotic Club’s dominance, much like their agile robots, is astounding. #e !$een group members, guided by Robotics Club di-rector Chris Burke, are the number one team in the state and have quali!ed to go to both the National and World robotics competitions.

#e basis of Robotics Club is to design and develop a robot that can run on a joy-stick or autonomously. Clubs around the world start o" with a standard design and then add their own unique-ness and engineering in order to make the most e%cient ro-bot for the year’s annual game.

“#e game for the 2012-2013 year is called Sack At-tack. #e goal of Sack Attack is to pick up as many sacks (beanbags) as you can and put them in your team’s trough in 1:45 seconds,” Burke said.

MN Robotics mem-bers compete almost every weekend at tournaments that take place at local high schools. During the competi-tion process, two teams take their places on opposite sides of a playing !eld and try to both score on their own side and steal other teams’ sacks.

“#ere are always a few teams that are equal or bet-ter than us [at tournaments]. Something seems to always

lindsey amenfront editor

They gave us a lot construc-tive criticism. They told us what they liked in our show and what we need to do bet-ter. “

aaron gonzalez sophomore

BUILD Robotics Club gets their standard parts from a company called VEX. After that, the club is free to engineer their robot to be most e!cient for the year’s game.

PRACTICE

COMPETE

Every day after school, Robotics Club meets to rewire, "x, and practice with their robots before the weekend’s competi-tion.

Almost every weekend, RC travels to a local high school to compete against other teams. In competi-tion, two teams from two separate schools face o# on opposite ends of the playing "eld.

other [drama programs] are doing,” drama instruc-tor Michelle Williamson said.

#e festival featured workshops and performances

judged by theater profession-als. Each school performs an excerpt from their play twice: in the morning for judges and in the a$ernoon for the Mil-lard community. During the morning, theater judges from the Omaha area came in to evaluate the acting and techni-cal aspects of the winter play.

“#ey gave a lot of con-structive criticism. #ey told us what they liked in our show and

what we need to do better. #ey are very knowledgeable,” soph-omore Aaron Gonzalez said.

At the festival, the drama department performed an ex-

cerpt from their winter play. #is is commonly called a One Act. It al-lowed the judges to see a sampling of the play.

“As co-chief of the set, this show will help me better understand what elements make a set great. #eir critique

allows us to enhance the set for our upcoming performance, as well as builds for future shows,” junior Anwar Mahmoud said.

#e All-Millard Festival also incorporated workshops for both the actors and tech-nicians from each school. #rough these sessions, stu-dents not only gained more feedback from theater profes-sionals in the community, but they also received tips and tricks

from other drama students.“All these schools have a

strong drama program, and we wanted a way to unify it. We wanted it to be a sharing of the di"erent drama depart-ments. You can learn from others without it being a com-petition. Also, if they want to make theater a profession, this will give them a little bit of an edge,” Williamson said.

#rough this joint e"ort, the drama programs from each Millard school are at-tempting to ready their stu-dents for their winter plays. MN’s Defying Gravity will be shown from Feb. 7th to the 9th.

“It’s a time to meet new theater groups and get feedback from theater professionals. Unlike other teams at MN, we never get to meet people from other schools who participate in the same activity as us, so the festival has really torn down barriers for us,” Mahmoud said.

break or go wrong, so we have to !x it on the spot, which can make it tough,” senior Tyhler Roth said.

Strategy is another way for teams to score points.

“#is year, having a good strategy is really important because you can descore (take bean bags out of your oppo-nents goals). Last year you couldn’t descore, so it was really just who could score the most e%ciently. #is year it’s who can score the most and guard your goal to prevent the other team from descoring your points,” junior Alan Alahmad said.

Alahmad believes that the Robotics Club’s domi-nation has come largely from its e%cient robots.

“Our success has come from having a very simple but e"ective design for our ro-bot. O$en, we see these large, complicated robots that are too mechanically complex to work. Our robot is very quick and has only three controls, so it’s very easy to drive.” Alahmad said.

#is hard-working at-titude has not gone unrecog-nized. In just two years, Ro-botics has earned births into the Nationals, Worlds, and State events. #ey have beaten teams with scores like 200-60.

“Usually, it takes teams time to get established, but our goal this year was to be good sooner,” Burke said.

From a humble IT side room buzzing with a chorus of machinery, the Robotics Club will continue their quiet dominance. - but their real successes don’t happen here.

“For me, sitting up on the bleachers and watching the look of joy on their faces, with trophies in hand... to see that af-ter all this hard work, that’s the greatest feeling,” Burke said.

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