Harker middle and upper school instrumentalists kicked off the new year on Jan. 13 at the annual Winter Concert, held at the Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater in San Jose. The middle school’s Grade 6 Jazz band, Grades 7-8 Jazz Band, Grade 6 Orchestra and Grades 7-8 Orchestra shared the stage with the upper school’s Jazz Band, Lab Band and the Harker Orchestra. The audience was treated to a wide selection of pieces, including works by Stevie Wonder, Brahms, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis and Dmitri Shostakovich, as well as a wonderful piece composed by grade 8 student Anika Fuloria.

For many years, Harker’s Future Problem Solving program has proven invaluable to students in grades 6-12 who wish to engage global issues while also developing their research and critical analysis skills. This year, the program was expanded to the lower school in the form of a grade 5 club to help prepare students for future involvement once they enter the middle school.

According to lower school English teacher Scott Murphy, who currently advises the lower school’s FPS club, things have developed nicely, so far.

The club has mainly functioned as a way for students to familiarize themselves with the procedure of FPS competitions. “In club, students practiced the different parts of the procedure and exercised creative and critical thinking skills,” said Murphy. Future Problem Solving competitions typically deal with real life or near-future scenarios, such as environmental or economic issues. By contrast, the FPS club at the lower school is “focused more on fairytale scenarios, like what would happen if Robin Hood left Sherwood Forest and what becomes of Goldilocks’ reputation after the incident with the three bears,” Murphy said.

These club sessions act as precursors for “practice problem” sessions held on weekends, where the students get practice solving problems in an environment simulating a real FPS competition, led by middle and upper school students.

Middle school students excelled in this year’s American Mathematics Competition 8, administered by the Mathematical Association of America. Alexander Hu, grade 7, earned a perfect score of 25 on the exam, with fellow seventh graders Rishab Parthasarathy, Kevin Wang, Mark Hu and William Zhao receiving near-perfect scores of 24. Eighth graders Sidra Xu, Eric Zhu, Aditya Singhvi and Vivian Jin also had scores of 24.

 Other high scorers were Ashley Hu and Connie Jiang, both grade 6, Shounak Ghosh and Angela Jia, both grade 7, and eighth grader Arya Maheshwari, who all earned 23 points. Daniel Wang, Mariamma Vazhaeparambil, Anika Fuloria and Luisa Pan, all grade 8; Akhilesh Chegu and David Dai, both grade 7; Riya Gupta and Stephen Xia, both grade 6; and Ethan Liu, grade 5, all scored an impressive 22.

Over the holiday season, middle school students worked hard to collect gifts for Family Giving Tree, delivering 350 gifts to the organization. With the help of Harker’s students, Family Giving Tree was able to distribute more than 76,000 gifts during the 2016 holiday season, surpassing the organization’s goal for the drive.

“I am extremely proud of all our students, families and staff that go over and beyond in the spirit of giving,” said middle school BEST director Lorena Martinez. The goal for the 2017 holiday drive is 400 gifts.

Started as an MBA project in 1990, Family Giving Tree seeks to alleviate Bay Area poverty by organizing major giving drives every year. The annual Holiday Wish Drive works to fulfill holiday gift requests for low-income households, and the Back-to-School Drive provides backpacks with school supplies to tens of thousands of K-12 students.

In mid-December, students in grades 2-3 took the stage at the Bucknall Theater for the annual Grade 2-3 Holiday Show. Performers sang a selection of holiday-themed songs, including “Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night” and “Happy Hanukkah!” Grade 2 teachers joined in the festivities during the performance of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” and grade 3 teachers had a great time on stage during the students’ rendition of “Here Comes the Snow.”

“Summer Camp,” this year’s grade 5 show, directed by Kellie Binney-Smart, featured a cast of 132 students performing a series of song and dance numbers about their adventures at Camp Runamok – encountering bugs, bears and camp leaders as they learn to fit in and make new friends. Students worked behind the scenes as well as on stage, with Danny Dunn’s lower school technical theater students serving as the show’s crew.

A huge cast of 170 students twirled and tumbled their way through this year’s upper school dance production, “Circus,” held Jan. 27-28 at the Blackford Theater. Songs and routines were themed around the daring and bedazzling performances of three-ring circuses, with students dancing to songs including “Everybody Loves a Circus Show” by Take That, “Funhouse” by Pink and “Tightrope” by Janelle Monae. Continuing the long-standing tradition of faculty members performing at the show, Pilar Aguero-Esparza, Kristina Alaniz, Jill Bettencourt, Shaun Kelley Jahshan, Susan King, Diane Main, Suneeta Mani, Sue Prutton and Victor Squillacioti took the stage for a number driven by Flo Rida’s “Right Round.”

Three Harker students had notable performances at Santa Clara University’s High School Mathematics Contest, held in November. Senior Kai-Siang Ang took first place among seniors at the contest, while Misha Ivkov, grade 12, and Joanna Lin, grade 11, both received honorable mentions. A total of 131 students participated in the contest.

Started in 1958, the High School Mathematics Contest is sponsored by SCU’s Department of Mathematics and Computer Science and consists of a three-hour exam that tests problem-solving skills and mathematical ingenuity. It is typically held on the second Saturday of November.

In late January, upper school soccer teams took to Davis Field for this year’s Kicks Against Cancer event to benefit Camp Okizu, which organizes camp outings for children with cancer. The girls varsity, boys varsity and boys JV teams raised money in the week leading up to the event by selling T-shirts and wristbands. This year, the event’s organizers also sold special tie-dyed T-shirts, which proved to be great sellers.

“We only ordered 75 shirts, because we weren’t sure if they were going to be popular,” said senior Maile Chung, who helped organize the event. “Lucky for us, we sold out on the first day of Kicks week.”

Chung first got involved with Kicks Against Cancer as a freshman. “When the upperclassmen started telling me to wear purple for Kicks and sign up for selling, I was very excited to become more involved with this great fundraiser,” she said. “I wanted to help out as much as I could, not only for raising money for Camp Okizu, but also because I wanted to enhance my leadership skills.”

Although the amount raised had not been tallied at press time, Chung estimated that it was between $1,000 and $1,500.

“I’m really happy that I was able to take charge of this fundraiser and be a part of something that benefits others,” Chung said. “If I hadn’t put myself out there and tried to be a leader, I wouldn’t have had the amazing experience of being a part of Kicks, which I definitely would have regretted.”

On Feb. 3, HarkerCTF held its first cybersecurity competition at the Nichols Hall atrium. About 60 students separated into teams to solve cybersecurity problems and answer lab questions, which required them to submit their own code for grading.

HarkerCTF, which aims to boost student interest in computer science and give advanced computer science students opportunities to test their abilities, organized the competition to give students a chance to utilize their knowledge of applied computer science concepts. In computer security, CTF (Capture The Flag) is a popular type of computer security competition.

“In order to allow all students to participate in the event regardless their previous computer science experience, and to promote more students to become interested in computer science, we have provided some introductory questions in our competition as well, so all students could learn from the competition,” said HarkerCTF president Johnny Wang, grade 10. HarkerCTF plans to invite students from other schools to attend future events.

Placing first at the event was team “VASP,” consisting of grade 11 students Sumer Kohli, Praveen Batra, Vijay Bharadwaj and Akhil Arun. The humorously named “Team Freshmen,” made up of juniors Swapnil Garg, Andrew Semenza, Adriano Hernandez and Derek Yen, placed second. In third place was “L33t Haxors,” consisting of seniors Misha Ivkov, Vedaad Shakib and Andrew Tierno.

Harker’s team of physicists took third place overall at the United States Invitational Young Physicists Tournament, held late last month at Philadelphia’s University of the Sciences. The team – comprising senior Manan Shah, juniors Neelesh Ramachandran and Selin Sayiner, and sophomores Ayush Pancholy and Ashwin Rammohan – earned 70.5 points to tie for third place, trailing just 1.5 points behind the second place finisher.

Important to the team’s success in Philadelphia was the work done by the research team of juniors Joanna Lin and Justin Xie and sophomores Nishant Ravi and Kaushik Shivakumar. These students spent many hours after school performing research and running experiments that provided valuable information to the team that represented Harker at the tournament.

The Young Physicists Tournament is held in a round-robin format and has schools debate solutions to various problems. Teams are evaluated based on the quality of their theoretical solutions, experimental evidence and answers during Q&A portions.

Late last year, Vignesh Panchanatham, grade 11, was named to the US Chess Federation’s 2017 All-America Chess Team in the age 15 category, one of the highest possible accolades for a chess player under the age of 18. It capped off a very successful chess year for Panchanatham, who was also named an International Master following his July performance at the World Open in Philadelphia. Way to go, Vignesh!

During the third week of January, 22 students from the Shanghai World Foreign Language Academy visited Harker as part of an annual exchange program with the school, which has existed for more than 20 years.

The students arrived on the morning of Saturday, Jan. 14, and met up with their homestays. The WFLA chaperones enjoyed a day of sightseeing in San Francisco courtesy of technical theater teacher Paul Vallerga. The following day, grade 3 department chair Kathy Ferretti shuttled the chaperones to Monterey and Gilroy, and on Monday, lower school English department chair Kate Shanahan took them shopping in the San Jose area.

On their first day at Harker, the students observed classes with their buddies, made crafts in the middle school’s innovation lab and learned how to play American football. The next day, they toured Stanford University and visited the campus’s Cantor Arts Center. Thursday’s cooking class was especially fun for the students, who “had a great time making sloppy Joes, deviled eggs, clam chowder and apple pie,” said Jennifer Walrod, global education director.

Friday was packed with activity, as the WFLA students enjoyed a Chinese paper-cutting activity with lower school students, then headed to Cesar Chavez Park in downtown San Jose to enjoy a bag lunch before exploring the Tech Museum of Innovation. That afternoon, they returned to the middle school for a farewell party, where they and their buddies had great fun using the photo booth and making sundaes.

Just before boarding their flight home on Saturday, Jan. 21, the WFLA students shared an emotional farewell with their Harker buddies.

On Feb. 6, several members of Harker WiSTEM (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) headed to the lower school for a first-ever STEM Buddies event at that campus.

The upper school students set up several stations with chemistry activities, including making silly putty, experimenting with milk and paint, and using a ProScope. “My favorite part of the visit was working with the kids, because I could see how much fun they were having,” said senior Judy Pan, who helped run the silly putty station.

STEM Buddies began in 2014 as a way to increase interest in STEM learning among Harker’s younger students, starting with visits to the preschool. “In the future,” Pan said, “we hope to expand STEM Buddies to have more frequent visits to the lower school and preschool.”

On Feb. 11, Harker’s Science Bowl team won the regional competition held at the Stanford Linear Accelerator’s National Accelerator Laboratory. Senior Venkat Sankar and juniors Rajiv Movva, Shaya Zarkesh, Swapnil Garg and Derek Yen will move on to the national competition held in Washington, D.C. from April 27 – May 1. Yen filled in for Arjun Subramaniam, grade 12, who could not compete due to a familial obligation. Per the rules of the National Science Bowl, Yen will be part of the team that competes at nationals.

Held by the US Department of Energy since 1991, the National Science Bowl has teams of students compete against one another in a question-and-answer format similar to television game shows. Questions deal with a variety of topics such as biology, physics and math.

Earlier this month, 60 Harker students were named regional winners in this year’s Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. The awards, founded in 1923, recognize the creative work of young people in a wide variety of visual and literary disciplines.

Students were successful in many visual arts categories. Senior Irene Bashar received an honorable mention in architecture and industrial design. Debarati Chatterjee, grade 11, won a Gold Key in printmaking and two honorable mentions in digital art. Cynthia Chen, grade 9, was awarded an honorable mention in photography, and Gwyneth Chen, grade 11, received a Silver Key in sculpture and an honorable mention in jewelry.

Sophomore Rithika Devarakonda won a Gold Key in drawing and illustration, while Elizaveta Egorova, grade 10, won a Gold Key in digital art. Senior Alexa Gross hauled in an impressive eight awards, including Gold Keys in digital art and jewelry. She also won two Silver Keys in photography and a Silver Key in art portfolio, as well as honorable mentions in printmaking, art portfolio and digital art.

Senior Jeremy Harari won a Gold Key for his entry in photography, and Susan He, grade 10, received two Silver Keys and an honorable mention for her works in drawing and illustration. Kaitlin Hsu, grade 11, won four Silver Keys – two each in the painting, and drawing and illustration categories – and an honorable mention in painting.

Sophomore Jason Huang’s two entries in the painting category won him a pair of Silver Keys, and Ashley Jiang, grade 11, had great success in the photography category, winning three Silver Keys and an honorable mention. Raveena Kapatkar, grade 12, received a Silver Key in painting and an honorable mention in photography. Another senior, Angela Kim, won three Gold Keys, a Silver Key and an honorable mention in the design category.

Senior Sarisha Kurup earned a Gold Key and a Silver Key in painting, as well as an honorable mention for mixed media. Meanwhile, senior Isabel Lai collected an honorable mention and a Silver Key in drawing and illustration. Chen Yu Li, grade 12, was a big winner in drawing and illustration, winning a Gold Key and four Silver Keys. In addition, Li also received honorable mentions in art portfolio and painting.

Junior Millie Lin picked up a Silver Key in photography, and Katrina Liou, grade 10, won Gold Keys in both painting, and drawing and illustration, as well as honorable mentions in comic art and painting. Sophomore Erin Liu’s entry in photography won a Silver Key, while juniors Matthew McCallaCreary and Alexandra Michael picked up honorable mentions in digital art.

Senior Alex Mo won a Silver Key in photography, and junior Brandon Mo received a Silver Key and three honorable mentions in the painting category. Junior Kaitlyn Nguyen won a Silver Key in drawing and illustration, while fellow junior Raveena Panja earned a Silver Key in drawing and illustration and an honorable mention in comic art.

Senior Grace Park had a great showing this year, winning a Gold Key in painting and a Silver Key in photography, as well as honorable mentions in painting, art portfolio, and drawing and illustration. In photography, senior William Park and junior Abha Patkar received Silver Keys. Junior Alisa Su won an honorable mention in drawing and illustration. Senior Marti Sutton was very successful in painting, winning two Gold Keys and an honorable mention. He also received two honorable mentions in art portfolio.

Sophomore Catherine Wang won four awards in drawing and illustration – a Gold Key, two Silver Keys and an honorable mention. Elizabeth Yang, grade 10, also had success in drawing and illustration, winning a Silver Key and an honorable mention.

More than two dozen students also were recognized for their writing talents. Cynthia Chen, grade 9, earned a Gold Key in poetry and an honorable mention in flash fiction. Emily Chen, grade 11, was awarded an honorable mention in personal essay/memoir. Gwyneth Chen, grade 11, received a Silver Key in poetry and Ishani Cheshire, grade 10, earned an honorable mention in science fiction/fantasy. Junior Amy Dunphy received a Gold Key for her entry in flash fiction, while freshman Avi Gulati earned an honorable mention in critical essay and Mahika Halepete, grade 9, won a Silver Key in flash fiction.

Jacqueline He, grade 11, won a total of eight awards, earning four Gold Keys in poetry, two Silver Keys in short story and additional Silver Keys in flash fiction and poetry. Junior Amy Jin earned a Gold Key in critical essay, Silver Keys in critical essay and personal essay/memoir and an honorable mention in journalism. Soham Kahn, grade 12, received a Gold Key in critical essay, and junior Jimmy Lin won Silver Keys in critical essay and journalism. Millie Lin, also grade 11, won a Gold Key in personal essay/memoir and an honorable mention in critical essay.

Sophomore Erin Liu was awarded a Silver Key in personal essay/memoir, Annie Ma, grade 9, won a Gold Key in poetry and Kalyan Narayanan, also grade 9, received an honorable mention in flash fiction. Amla Rashingkar, grade 9, won an honorable mention in short story and a Silver Key in poetry, and senior Andrew Rule received two honorable mentions in the short story category. Kismet Singh, grade 9, earned an honorable mention in flash fiction and junior Sahana Srinivasan won a Silver Key in poetry.

Earning four awards, senior Meilan Steimle received two Gold Keys in short story and personal essay/memoir, a Silver Key in short story and an honorable mention in short story. In personal essay/memoir, Satchi Thockchom, grade 11, won a Silver Key. Grade 9 student Nellie Tonev received an honorable mention for her work in the poetry category, and Shania Wang, grade 10, won honorable mention in personal essay/memoir. Derek Yen, grade 11, was awarded a Silver Key in critical essay and an honorable mention in poetry, and sophomore Alexander Young received a Silver Key in poetry and an honorable mention in personal essay/memoir.

Katherine Zhang, grade 10, hauled in five awards, winning Silver Keys for short story and personal essay/memoir and honorable mentions for poetry and two journalism entries. Senior Tiffany Zhu received a Gold Key for poetry and a Silver Key for short story.

As Gold Key winners, Cynthia Chen, Debarati Chatterjee, Rithika Devarakonda, Elizaveta Egorova, Jeremy Harari, Jacqueline He, Amy Jin, Soham Khan, Angela Kim, Sarisha Kurup, Chen Yu Li, Millie Lin, Katrina Liou, Annie Ma, Grace Park, Meilan Steimle, Marti Sutton, Catherine Wang and Tiffany Zhu are now eligible to receive national recognition. National medal awardees will be invited to the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards national events in New York City.

Congratulations to all the talented students featured here!

Last month, sixth grader Sarah Mohammed won a gold medal at the California State Indoor Archery Competition, taking first place in the “Bowman Women Recurve” category. The event lasted two days, with each day consisting of six hours of intense competition. In the 2016 indoor competition, Mohammed took third and was ranked ninth at the national level. 

In February, Mohammed traveled to Las Vegas for the World Archery Championships and finished at a highly respectable fourth place internationally in her division, which included competitors from all over the world. Later this month, Mohammed will head to the national indoor competition and state outdoor competition, with plans to compete at the international outdoor competition in the summer.

Congratulations and good luck!

Cindy Proctor and Larissa Weaver’s grade 1 language arts students participated in a special invention project in January that had them conjuring up inventions as a tie-in with their literature readings. The first project of this kind was conducted three years ago, and involves students using items from an “Idea Box” to invent something that can be used to make everyday life easier or more enjoyable. Students were required to invent items that could be utilized by lots of people, and could not be used for time travel or violent purposes.

“We read stories in language arts class that highlight the importance of new ideas, the history of real inventions and books that teach the children about inventors, adult and child, fiction and non-fiction,” said Proctor. “We guide the children to understand that inventing is a process and that mistakes are part of this process.”

Students work on their inventions at home and periodically update their classmates on their progress, including the challenges they’ve faced. Classmates often respond with assistance and encouragement, which teaches the students that invention is often a collaborative endeavor.

The young inventors also learn how to give a presentation on their inventions to their classmates at what is called the Invention Convention, during which grade 2 students who participated the previous year visit the class.

This year, Sam Mazin, who created the technology behind the company Reflexion Medical made an appearance to speak with the students about the invention process and meets individually with each student to talk about their invention.

“All the children did an amazing job extending themselves and approaching the task with eagerness, creativity and perseverance,” Proctor said. Augusta Chen devised a machine designed for students who have trouble remembering to do homework, while Omya Vidyarthi’s “Fly Chair” assists the physically disabled with entering and exiting their homes. The “Camping Fooder,” invented by Jacob Chung, prepares food for outdoors enthusiasts, and Aarav Mann’s “Rolling Shoes” is meant to provide locomotion to those who cannot easily walk.

Over the two-week period from idea to invention to presentation, the students learn important lessons about “ingenuity, perseverance, problem solving and communicating an idea,” Proctor said. “We encourage the children to allow themselves to think, reflect, and make their ideas grow into something tangible. The Invention Convention is a celebration of their thinking process from the abstract to the concrete.”

Last month, the U.S. Department of Education announced this year’s candidates for the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program, and 19 Harker seniors were among them. Mission San Jose topped the local charts with 31.  As many as 161 of the candidates – numbering more than 5,000 – will be chosen as scholars.

The Presidential Scholars Program, launched in 1964, recognizes high school seniors of distinguished achievement in a variety of disciplines. It is recognized as one of the highest honors awarded to high school students.

Harker’s Presidential Scholar candidates for 2017 are:

Kai-Siang Ang
Steven Cao
Aditya Dhar
Davis Dunaway
Ria Gandhi
Andrew Gu
Zhuoying Huang
Lauren Liu
Sanjana Marce
Sandip Nirmel
Evani Radiya-Dixit
Divya Rajasekharan
Andrew Rule
Venkat Sankar
Manan Shah
Meilan Steimle
Arjun Subramaniam
Andrew Tierno
Michael Tseitlin

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Harker has the highest number of candidates from a school in California. Mission San Jose High School has 31 presidential scholar candidates, making it the California school with the most candidates. We apologize for the error.

AP Studio Art students showcased their work at last week’s AP Studio Art Reception, where works were displayed for the lunchtime crowd of students and faculty. The event is held every year to highlight the dedication and talent of Harker’s young artists, who every year create dozens of pieces across different media, including paintings, sculptures, drawings and photographs.