Volume 112, Issue 6

Page 1

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Volume 112 No. 6

November 22, 2021 PHOTO

Happy, Free, Confused, and Lonely with “Red (Taylor’s Version)”

Autumn is in the Air

This year saw a whopping 14 Freshman Caucus tickets throw their hat into the election ring, a number that nearly approaches last year’s 16. The Spectator has chosen to endorse three of the prospective tickets. Read page 5 for more Andy Xian & Fin Ying

Alifa Azad / The Spectator

Sasha Socolow / The Spectator

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

StuyPulse Team 694 won the Mustang Robot Rodeo competition at Clifton High School, Clifton, NJ.

The Boys Badminton Team won 4-1 against Bronx Science in the Public Schools Athletic League finals.

Music teacher Harold Stephan hosted a Songwriters Hall of Fame Master Session at Stuyvesant with Grammy-nominated Tommy “TBHits” Brown.

station. “I like that it’s more secluded than the printing station so it’s easier to get work done, and I also like that there are seats so you can sit down,” senior Ellen Pehlivanian said. While the Tech Room was only recently transformed into a new workspace, some students have suggested additional supplies to further improve the room. “Office supplies, say for example

Madeline Goodwin & Ayla Irshad

a stapler [...] would be a great addition [and] different office stationery. For example, pens,” Lee said. Pehlivanian added, “I wish we could add maybe some outlets so people could charge their phone or their laptop while they are doing their work.” The administration hopes that the change will be a helpful addition to both students and staff and that all students will feel welcome

to use it. “In the past, some students [did not use the room and] either didn’t know that [the room] was kind of [for] the Student Union or were maybe a little intimidated because upperclassmen tend to hang out in there,” Moran said. “There was an opportunity to give both students and staff more space. I think that that space could be utilized for students, and I hope it is.”

Robotics Team Places First at NYC RoboRama By JINA KOH and ZIYING JIAN At one of their first competitions in the pre-robotics season, Stuyvesant’s FIRST Robotics Challenge (FRC) team, StuyPulse 694, placed first at the NYC RoboRama event held at Francis Lewis High School on October 30. The team won 11 out of 12 matches, losing one match after their robot flipped over. StuyPulse 694 is made up of three different departments: engineering, which works with the mechanics of the robot hands-on; software engineering, which writes the code of the robot; and marketing, which promotes the team and raises funds. The objective of the competition was for each team to earn the greatest number of points, either by scoring balls or power cells in the team’s goal. Though StuyPulse 694 felt stressed before the competition, they were confident in succeeding. “There’s always pressure to do well

in any competition, especially since this is [...] the second competition [we’ve] had in the past two years,” junior and Director of Media Max

we only had one over the summer, which we relatively did well in. We came into this thinking we should be performing well because in com-

Zeng said. “[During] the pandemic, there were no competitions, and

parison to the other teams, our robot was quite better.”

Most notably, during one of the matches, StuyPulse’s robot flipped over after it was accelerated too quickly by the driver. “ I accelerated the robot too quickly and hit a bar with my wheel, causing the robot to flip. Because we were the main scorer on our team, this lost us the match,” senior and President of Software Engineering Samuel Belliveau said. This incident could have been caused by the imbalance in the design of the robot. “The center of mass of the robot is kind of off or not where it should be because of our battery placement and other things. Because there are bumps in the field, there is a possibility of tilting when you’re driving really fast,” Zeng said. “Especially with the schedule we had that day, we had no way of fixing the robot. Most repairs were very last minute, and we were praying that it worked.” While the team was thrown off,

Courtesy of The Robotics Team

English teacher Julie Sheinman took her Acting class to see a performance of “Wicked” on Broadway.

opened, a few students have already stopped by the Tech Room to take advantage of its resources. “I like that the [Tech Room] has a computer and a printer we can use aside from the printing station,” junior Lianne Ohayon said. “It’s a good place to come and finish up any work you have during your frees.” Given its location, many prefer the workspace to the printing

Ethan Sie & Khush Wadhwa

continued on page 2

Francesca Nemati / The Spectator

print station. “With the content in there, [the room] is really focused toward just working on assignments or printing something out,” junior and SU Vice President Ryan Lee said. “It’s a nice room where students are able to do a bunch of different work.” The administration created this space to address crowding near the print station on the second floor and as an additional

see pages 16-17

Sophia Mueller / The Spectator

Around the school building, Stuyvesant offers many student workspaces such as the library. Recently, the administration turned the former Big Sib Office in the Student Union (SU) room into a Tech Room, serving as a new workspace with technology for students to use. The Tech Room contains a desk spanning the length of the room with four computers and a

student workspace. “I don’t think there’s any official purpose, but there was definitely a need, based on the number of students using the print station, and backups in lines of kids trying to print things in the morning, so it’s to help ease that,” Assistant Principal of Health, Security, and Physical Education Brian Moran said. “It’s an extra space for students to get work done considering the library is at capacity just about every period.” Though it has only recently

Spend an afternoon with The Spectator’s Photo Department, who took a trek to discover the hidden beauty of an autumn day in lower Manhattan.

FRESHMAN CAUCUS ENDORSEMENTS 2021

New Tech Room Open to Students By JARED MOSER and MOMOCA MAIRAJ

stuyspec.com

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Nine years after its original release, fans still hold Taylor Swift’s fourth studio album, “Red,” in high esteem. Re-recorded in stunning quality, and featuring never-before-heard tracks, a great album just got even better. see page 19

NEWSBEAT

“The Pulse of the Student Body”


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Volume 112, Issue 6 by The Stuyvesant Spectator - Issuu