The Black & White Vol. 55 Issue 2

Page 1

FEATURET

SPORTS FEATURET

Alum Ben Barrett (‘16) dogsleds in Northwest Territories, Canada. PAGE 20

Athlete of the Month: field hockey’s Claire Hisle PAGE 18

Walt Whitman High School

photo courtesy BEN BARRETT

IN-DEPTH

2016 election feature PAGES 10-11

CROSSWORD photo by JEFFERSON LUO

7100 Whittier Boulevard Bethesda, MD 20817

“The Nightmare on Beale Street” PAGE 19

Friday, November 11, 2016

Volume 55, Issue 2

Students honor Tommy Buarque de Macedo through Verizon app contest by PEARL SUN

Student poker players are ‘all in’ by JENNIE YU For the average onlooker, poker is high-stakes entertainment where only the lucky succeed. But for one group of seniors, it’s all about strategy and socializing. Justin Baker, Robert Isaac, Matthew Noenickx, Harry Papaioannou and Joseph Tseytlin created a poker group that meets weekly to play games— good-natured competition between friends who share a common hobby. Eventually, they realized that poker could potentially provide them with numerous real-world financial opportunities, but their love for the game is what encourages the group to keep playing. Noenickx joined the group to enjoy challenging games with good friends while Isaac joined after watching Rounders, a movie about high-stakes underground poker. “When Rounders introduced me to the game, I began looking for people to play with,” Isaac said. “It’s very social. You’re not in the hand every time and can talk to friends, but our group has gotten better and therefore more competitive.” Noenickx agreed, saying the competition was what made each game fun. “I started playing because it was a good group of people that I enjoy hanging out with, and it was fun to see how well you could do and try to win games,” Noenickx said.

As an added bonus, the group also found that they could enjoy the many intellectual benefits that accompany the game. “There’s so much psychology involved in poker,” Tseytlin said. “Naturally, your decisions have to be based upon the decisions of other people, so there’s a lot of probability included as well.” In order to calculate the odds and improve their strategy, poker players need high-level, statistical math skills. Greg Papaioannou (‘13), Harry’s brother and occasional guest at the Whitman group’s table, is also the co-president of the Penn Poker Club at the University of Pennsylvania. He agrees that poker and finance are closely related, especially in terms of investing. “Poker players and investors alike fill in information gaps with assumptions formed from previous experiences,” Greg Papaioannou said. “Ultimately, the quality of their skill set becomes easily apparent in the long term.” As a junior majoring in finance, lessons he’s learned from poker will work in his favor as he enters the workforce, Greg Papaioannou said. “Poker promotes quick analytical thinking, rewards those who are quantitatively inclined and teaches that an individual can make the correct decision and still lose, which is quite a valuable life lesson,” he said.

Photo by ANNABELLE GORDON

Political journalists and strategists speak at The Black & White’s “The Challenges of Covering the 2016 Election” event, held in the auditorium Oct. 27. The speakers discussed the candidates, media coverage and the implications of the election. From left: E.J. Dionne (Washington Post), John Feehery (The Hill), Ashley Parker (New York Times), Matt Bai (Yahoo! News) and Ruth Marcus (Washington Post). Full election coverage pages 10-11.

Calculus teacher Michelle Holloway was scrolling through her e-mails when she came across one that caught her eye: “Give your students the chance to invent their own app,” it read, bringing back memories of student Tommy Buarque de Macedo and the app that he never had the chance to put into effect. Buarque de Macedo and his parents died in a car crash earlier this year. Holloway’s BC calculus classes will enter the Verizon Innovative App Challenge this fall using Buarque de Macedo’s original idea—an app that tracks the school bus routes throughout the county—as a springboard for their concept. The nationwide contest is held in partnership with the We Are Teachers organization and challenges middle and high school students to develop a mobile app concept that solves a problem in their community. “I feel like when someone is gone, people just move on and forget them,” Holloway said. “I thought entering this contest could bring Tommy back in a way that celebrates his intelligence.” After developing an app idea, teams of five to seven contestants must answer questions about their idea in an essay and make a short video on the concept. The submission deadline is Nov. 18, and each state will select one middle school and one high school team to win Best in State, awarding mobile tablets to each team member and $5,000 to the school or nonprofit program.

I feel like when someone is gone, people just move on and forget them. I thought entering this contest could bring Tommy back in a way that celebrates his intelligence. -math teacher Michelle Holloway

Twenty-four teams win at the Best in Region level, which allows them to proceed to compete for Best in Nation. The Fan Favorite team, chosen through public voting, and the final eight Best in Nation winners receive an additional $15,000, coding training from MIT experts and a fully paid trip to the National Technology Student Association Conference. The Fan Favorite winner will be announced Feb. 15, 2017. But it’s not about winning, it’s about celebrating de Macedo, Holloway said. “He started the app, so we’d like to finish it and even take it further,” she said. “And we’d like to give him credit for it.” Students are grateful to enter a contest that benefits the community while also carrying on Buarque de Macedo’s legacy, juniors Rabhya Mehrotra and Kyra Du said . “Entering the contest in honor of Tommy gives us some purpose other than winning a prize,” Du said. continued on page

2

Students ascend to new heights by joining ‘Earth Trek’ team by AMY NANKIN

Beads of sweat drip down junior Hope Hilsenrath’s face as she desperately gazes up at the wall, searching for her next move. She reaches out and strategically places her fingers in the creases of the next rock, hoisting herself up, over and over, until she reaches the top of the wall. Alongside Hilsenrath, Whitman juniors Alex Garner, Caroline Brody and freshman Matt Ryan practice these movements regularly at Earth Treks—an indoor rockwall facility in Rockville— as part of an advanced competitive team called Earth Treks (ET). “On my team level, most of the kids have got the climbing aspect figured out, and they don’t

need much teaching,” Garner said. “While it is a team sport, it’s definitely more individual. The difficulty of the climbing we do requires a lot of strategic thinking.” Being on an indoor team is a major time commitment for athletes as they practice three days a week for three hours. During practices, the coach leads the team in workouts or allows them to work individually on various skills. As climbers become more advanced, the climbs they compete in consist of more difficult rock formations. For them to master these climbs, coaches provide them with strategies to tap into a more positive mindset and be able to maneuver themselves up the wall. continued on page

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Photo courtesy KIAN MCKELLAR

Brody practices technique while scaling a wall at Earthtreks climbing facility.


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