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Homestead High School 21370 Homestead Rd, Cupertino, CA 95014
Volume 61, Issue 6
April 5, 2024
Robotics qualifies for world championships for first time in school history Months of hard work culminate in unforeseen victory
week in person and then some more outside,” Edge said. “First we started out with a rough sketch of what we wanted, and then we moved into designing each [component] starting with prototypes, then a more refined By Nathan Gu, Brian Ling and version. We eventually put together an alpha Kevin Miao robot.” The team’s first competition this seaRobotics Team 670 won the Arizo- son was the Silicon Valley Regional, which na East Regional competition on March ended in a loss, Edge said. Despite this, the 23, qualifying the members to compete team was able to learn from the experience, in the global championship for the first better preparing them for the Arizona East time in the program’s history, president Regionals. “[We were able to] do small iterations Geoffrey Edge said. The championship tournament will be held on April 17 in to improve everything and then get a lot of practice in before Arizona,” Edge said. “We Houston. “This is significant because our team [had] very few issues in Arizona, just some has been around since 2001 and we’ve minor mechanical things, nothing electrical, never actually gone to the world champi- a couple of software bugs, [and] that’s par onship by qualifying for an official event,” for the course.” The robot’s design process was more efEdge, a senior, said. “This is a really big ficient than it was in previous years, Haldar deal because we made school history.” The team received the prompt for said, which played a part in the team’s overthe competition two months prior to the whelming victory. “Our [improved] system and having two event and has been working hard to create their robot since, fellow officer, junior different revisions significantly helped us Auhon Haldar said. The prompt requires this year,” Haldar said. “Going forward, we teams to design a robot that can take want to keep that, because it allows us to foam rings and shoot them into different have tech using the robot while having mech goals on a field. Winners are determined work on the electrical [side of the] robot.” Throughout the season, robotics adviser using a point-based system. With only two months to assemble Ed Taylor said he has seen steady improvetheir competition robot from scratch, ment in both the club’s organization, its Edge said the team was on a tight sched- technical capability and its ability to manage and gather funds. ule and had to work fast. “We had a push on fundraising to bring “We’ve [spent] about 20 hours a in enough funds so we can build two robots in parallel,” Taylor said. “That allows the students to make mechanical improvements and changes to the robot while the software team actually can work Photo by Evelyn Wang on the soft“[The team] had many ideas and created many prototypes before ware, so it deciding on a final one,” community lead Auhon Haldar said.
Robotics’ success was achieved by working hard and learning from previous experience, president Geoffrey Edge said.
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speeds up development.” The team utilized a new strategy this year by creating a detailed prototype robot out of cheaper material first, so the tech team could develop and test the code while the competition robot was being built, Haldar said. This system made sure different teams worked as efficiently as possible. On the first day of the competition, Team 670 placed first after facing off against 42 teams in qualification matches, Haldar said. The team’s victory allowed its members to choose their teammates for the playoff matches. “Once we had our lines of three teams, we competed in playoff matches, which is a double elimination format,” Haldar said. “So if you lose two matches, you are out for good. We won all of our matches, so that was never really an issue for us.” After two long months of hard work, the team secured the victory and its spot in the global championship, Edge said. “Once the final scores got posted, everyone was really, really happy and excited,”
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Edge said. “A lot of people were crying and it was just a great sense of accomplishment.” In the weeks leading up to the world championship, the team is working to fix problems that were brought up during the Arizona East Regional, Haldar said. “Before going to worlds, we want to make sure that the robot has as few points of failure as possible, especially making certain systems that are prone to getting hit more robust,” Haldar said. “Reducing any possible risks is our main priority.” There will be over 600 teams from around the world competing at the world championship, so it is unreasonable to expect another overwhelming victory, Haldar said. “Currently, we’re hoping to at least get to divisional playoffs,” Haldar said. “If we win and manage to make it to [the finals], then that would be incredible for the team.”
Earth Day event to be held district-wide
ASB revises prom due to funding issues
Event aims to educate climate efforts of attendees
Prom to include juniors, seniors, more amenities
By Danielle Feldsher, Parker Lin and Aviv Matas The first ever district-wide Earth Day event is being hosted by the FUHSD Climate Collective at the Computer History Museum on April 11, freshman Sufee Kathane, who serves as the grant and booth sub-committee lead, said. The free event is split into three different
sections. During the pre-program, local organizations will offer green career path-related internships and resources for students, Kathane said. Next, the event will include a short seated program with speakers like Rep. Ro Khanna and National Geographic explorers. The third and longest part of the event features 50 student projects from all five FUHSD schools on different ways to alleviate climate change, such as recycling whiteboard markers, an interactive trash mural and short films and animations.
See Earth Day event, Page 2
By Annie Guo and Veronica Zhao Due to declining enrollment and a lack of funding, this year’s prom, scheduled for May 25 at The Tech Interactive Museum in San Jose, will merge the previously-separate junior and senior proms, leadership teacher Jessica Kirby said. The decision was made to maintain the quality of the dance while remaining within the budget, Kirby said.
Although there were several options for what this year’s prom would look like, ASB ultimately decided on combining junior and senior prom into a joint event after examining the results of a survey the class cabinets conducted last school year, Kirby said. “We will not be able to afford two proms unless both are on campus. However, in the survey, we found that people don’t necessarily want to have prom on campus,” Kirby said. “The consensus was to make one prom so we can make sure we get a nice venue, afford all the things and everyone can attend.”
See Prom preparations, Page 3
Opinion
Lifestyles
Arts & Culture
Sports
A necessary approach to U.S. history: Incorporating critical race theory is essential to history curriculums Page 6
A battle for students’ favorite song: Song March Madness enriches language and cultural learning Page 11
‘Dune: Part Two’: Film masterfully adapts sci-fi epic through riveting scenes Page 12
Sprint coach steps down: Disagreements disrupt track athletes’ training Page 14
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