The Matador Issue 8 April 10, 2018

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VOL. 63 ISSUE 8

THE MATADOR 801 S. RAMONA STREET, SAN GABRIEL, CA 91776

SAN GABRIEL HIGH SCHOOL

WWW.THEMATADORSGHS.US

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018

AUSD hosts second annual Robotics Challenge BY CARLOS CARRILLO

The second annual Alhambra Unified School District (AUSD) Robotics Challenge hosted 12 teams from Alhambra High School, Mark Keppel High School, and San Gabriel High School on April 7. The students, organized in groups from two to six, were judged in three categories: design (how the robot was built), academic value (how mathematical and scientific concepts were applied in building the robot), and performance (how the robot fared in the competition). This y e a r ’ s c h a l l e n g e, o n w h i c h performance was judged, simulated robot ambulances rescuing people from a fire. Two teams competed at a time, starting their robots from opposite corners and then maneuvering them around wooden obstacles (trees) and an autonomous robot that served as a “fire wizard,” all while trying to rescue half-empty Gatorade bottles (people) by grabbing them with their robot and returning them to their hospitals in the corners parallel to their starting point. In order to fully save a patient, however, each team had to correctly answer a math question when a bottle was placed in the hospital. Points were also deducted if the robots collided

PHOTO COURTESY OF NICOLAS NGUYEN

The field where the robots performed is shown, with the fire robot in the middle and Gatorade bottles and wooden blocks acting as people in need of rescue and trees. with a tree or the fire wizard. Each round was meant to have two distinct sections: a two-minute autonomous portion in which the robots ran only on prewritten code and not human controls, and a five-minute manual portion in which competitors used remotes to control their robots. However, only one autonomous run occured in the competition as most teams, including junior Delia Arias’, opted not to take part

in that segment. “Our team actually did have an autonomous code made by one of the girls, but last minute she decided it would be best to not use it since it could have caused us to hit obstacles and lose points,” Arias said. “After seeing the Mark Keppel team really hurt themselves by getting stuck from the autonomous code, we were glad that our team member made that call.”

Larsen retires after 18 years at SGHS

PHOTO BY KATHERINE HUANG

Valerie Larsen poses in her classroom on her last day with the work and projects of her past students behind her. BY KEVIN CONTRERAS

After 37 years in the classroom, English teacher Valerie Larsen’s last day was on May 6 due to the extreme back pain she had been experiencing throughout the year. Teary-eyed and sad, Larsen said good bye to her students and colleagues before starting a new stage in her life. “I am going to put all my poetry together in a book, learn guitar, get more active in my church, and I am going to be able to see my daughter more,” Larsen said. “I have joined a book club. I am going to travel, work out at the gym and walk more.” Though Larsen had always loved reading, it was not until she was 24 that she realized that she wanted to become a teacher. “I got really turned on to English in college,” Larsen said. “I had some great professors and that’s when I realized how fun English could be.” After community college, Larsen transferred to the University of Arkansas. She took the required courses to become a teacher and began

OPINIONS pg. 4 5

teaching at a country school in Arkansas. After a year, she moved to California to teach at the all-boys Catholic high school, St. Francis, in La Cañada. It was not until 2000 that she became an English teacher for SGHS. “It was really wonderful to have girls in the classroom,” Larsen said. “Boys act differently when there are girls around.” Throughout her many years here, Larsen has become a special person in the lives of many students. Senior Kailah Situ has become fond of her this past year. “My friends and I are pretty close with her, so we always have good laughs with her,” Situ said. “She was one of the teachers that I was actually close too; she is really nice and friendly with us.” Larsen’s early exit made many of her students sad, many of whom expected to be able to finish the year with her. Larsen’s back pain made it difficult to work. She will be on disability leave, with an upcoming surgery, and officially retire on June 30. “Everyday was very painful for me, and I just pushed through as hard as I could to each day,” Larsen said. “It got to where the end of each day I was crying by the time I got to my car. I really wanted to come the week after spring break to see my sophomores’ Hamlet videos because I knew they worked hard on them. That’s why I came this last week.” On her last day, Larsen received a lot of appreciation, making her final day full of bittersweet moments. “My colleagues have been very supportive of me and I would like to thank them,” Larsen said. “A lot of students gave me gifts and cards today and I’ll treasure them forever. All the hugs that I got were so nice—it was such a beautiful way to end my career. I want my students to know that I tried really hard to make it to the end of the year, but I just couldn’t do it.” Larsen’s students are sad to see their teacher leave, but happy that she will not be in pain anymore. She greatly impacted most of her students. Senior Brandon Li Nguyen knows her lessons will stay with him for a long time. “In my whole high school experience, she is one of the teachers that I am going to remember,” Nguyen said. “She is someone I can go to if I ever need help with school or life.”

FOCUS pg. 6-7

LIFE & ART pg. 8-9

Despite the lack of autonomous competition, many teams, including junior Huy Nguyen’s, invested time to perfect their robot’s design. “We first followed the original build instructions for the robot; then we had to follow the competition rule and remove a the claw and design our own mechanism to gather water bottles,” Nguyen said. “Unlike the other robots, we put four motors instead of two, which made it go fast but it also meant double the work for coding. We used sample programs given by the coding program we used, RobotC, and we tweaked it [until] it worked with our robot.” In the overall competition, team Technobiotics from Mark Keppel placed first, team Andy MIA from San Gabriel, consisting of juniors Kevin Huang, Andy Ly, Huy Nguyen and sophomore Andrew Liu, placed second, and team Carl’s Jr from San Gabriel, consisting of junior Adolfo Martinez and freshmen Carlos Campa and Freddy Perez, placed third. Carl’s Jr was assisted by juniors Delia Arias, Jessica Razo, Xareny Rodriguez, and freshman Alina Soliz. AUSD plans to continue hosting and expanding its annual Robotics Challenge as it enters its third year next school year.

Matador Band travels to Yosemite

PHOTO BY ALICE LI

The Matador Band gathers in front of Yosemite’s forests and mountains. BY ALICE LI

Fully packed with daily necessities waiting for their trip to officially start, Marching Band joyfully stepped into the red coach bus to begin a four-day trip to Yo s e m i t e Na t i o n a l Pa r k f r o m March 27 to March 30. At the first stop of the band tour, band members got to experience a tour of Dewar’s Candy Store that has been in business for over 100 years in Bakersfield, California. They received peanut butter flavored Taffy Chews and a scoop of ice cream with the flavor of their choice. Although many enjoyed the taffy that was given sophomore Andy Lam said otherwise.

SPORTS pg. 10-11

“The ice cream shop was disgusting, Lam said. “I don’t know why I ate [the taffy]. [The taffy] was so sweet and had peanut butter— the two things I hate the most. I don’t have a sweet tooth.” After the candy store, band members toured the campus of University of California, Merced. At around 6 p.m., they arrived at the Half Dome Village at Yosemite National Park. Band members quickly unpacked their luggage in their designated tent cabins to get ready for dinner. As night fell, many students snuggled into their sleeping bags with freezing temperatures during midnight. Lam reminisced about the time at Yosemite despite the conditions.

continued on pg. 3

FEATURE S pg. 12


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