competition – The Oracle

Student teams take on nationwide competitions

Fenton Zarlengo, Sophia Hwangbo and Victor Dang — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 06:03:53 +0000

On March 23, Gunn Robotics Team won the For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology Robotics Competition Idaho Regional in Nampa, Idaho. GRT’s robot climbed the leaderboards and joined the winning alliance of three teams in the finals, despite challenging mechanical and software failures.

The Idaho regional competition comprised practice matches, qualifications and playoffs. During the qualifications, robots accrued ranking points for a chance to compete in the playoffs, which determined the event winners.
After the first round of qualifications,
GRT — registered under the team number
192 — was in 43rd place of 43 teams due to
repeated control failures. After all rounds
of qualifications, however, GRT was in 20th
place, and was selected to join Alliance 7 by

the alliance captain, team 2122.
In the final best-of-three rounds, GRT’s
alliance and the opposing alliance each won
one match, leading to a final tiebreaker that
ended with a score of 103 for Alliance 7 and
97 for Alliance 1.
Learning from past mistakes allowed the
team to be successful this year, according to
Safety Captain junior Amelia Perry.
“We have a system to pass information to
future years, which is why we have lasted so
long as a team,” she said.
As the regional winners, GRT and their
alliance captain team 2122 from Boise, Idaho,
will continue to the April 17 to 20 FIRST world
championship in Houston, Texas.

Titan cheerleaders qualify for nationals, up their game

Liza Kolbasov, Editor-in-Chief — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 18:21:04 +0000

After a successful season, months of preparation and an outstanding performance at their last competition in Santa Cruz, the cheer team recently qualified for nationals, which will take place in Anaheim between Feb. 22 and Feb. 24.

The team put a lot of work into preparing for the competition, with particular focus placed on their stunts and tumbling through special clinics and practices. “[Tumbling is] what you see at games when people go in the air,” junior Zoe? Lo said. “It seems pretty straightforward. You lift the person in the air and then you hope they don’t fall. But there’s actually a lot more behind it: the technique, the way you position your body and utilize your muscles to get the best start possible. [Practicing these skills] really helps us with competitions because we’re nice and clean and sharp… a huge part of cheer is to not only be loud and to show the judges what you can do, but also to be clean about it and safe.”

According to cheer coach Jazmyn Turner, preparation for the competition began last school year. The team held tryouts in April and worked on perfecting their routine over the summer. “Coming into the new year, we really focused on the stunt- ing and then from there we placed all of it together,” she said.

For their competition in Santa Cruz, the team members worked on improving the routine that they had choreographed last year. “Last year was just a lot more rushed, throwing it together last minute before [the] competition,” junior Emily Cohen said. “But this year, we had the same routine, so we had more time to practice. It’s really exciting to hit it full-out once.”

Lo believes that the team dynamic also contributed to their success at the competition. Over the course of the season, they were able to establish an understanding and knowledge of each other that ultimately helped them succeed. “It’s a team sport,” she said. “It’s not how fast you can run, or how far you can jump or how many baskets you can shoot. It’s a team effort. If you want to get someone up in the air or you want to hit that routine, you have to do it all.”

Cohen also believes that better time management was a major factor in their success this year. “This time, we just spread [our preparation] out over more weeks and focused on going back to the basics of everything and conditioning or being stronger instead of just rushing into everything and trying to throw skills we didn’t know we had yet,” she said.

Turner thinks that the team’s mindset going into the competition was crucial to achieving good results. “Being a coach, I can only take them so far,” she said. “If they don’t have it in their heads to want to become a better athlete then in the end they’re not going to succeed.”

The team was extremely excited to find out that they had qualified for nationals. “[I was] ecstatic,” Lo said. “I couldn’t believe it. I was really hoping that we would, so a small part of my mind was like, ‘yeah, we’ve got this,’ but you’re always worried that you don’t. We were just so happy.” Turner believes that their excellence at this competition showed them the potential they have for the future.

In the future, Turner hopes to help improve the cheerleaders’ athleticism and increase the level of difficulty in their routines. “My main goal is to make them stronger and advance them in their skills and their stunting,” she said. “I really would like to see a team that can show the different qualities of cheerleading such as advanced stunting, advanced tumbling and really advanced skills such as arm motions, sharpness, jumps, anything of that nature.” The cheer team hopes to put their best foot forward at nationals.

Season Preview: Cheer

bridgettegong — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 18:08:33 +0000

Bridgette Gong

WC: 177

While other winter sports are just starting, the athletes in cheer show consistent diligence: the two-season sport transitions from fall regionals to winter nationals. Onto her third year of the sport, team captain senior Arianna Sweat’s interest in the sport does not falter. “I really like all the aspects of cheer because it is a mixture of everything I love like stunting and dance which is a good balance.”

In addition to the sport itself, Sweat also enjoys practices with her teammates. “We’re all really close and we’re all friends with a common goal of doing well at nationals,” she said.

Junior Athena Wang also agrees that her teammates keep her motivated as the season continues. “We work as a unit and everyone is really encouraging,” Wang said. As they approach their biggest competition of the year, nationals, the team shifts their focus on different aspects of the sport. “In the past we were more focused on dance aspects, but now we are more focused on conditioning such as running and weight lifting,” Wang said.

Silicon Valley fosters an unhealthy competitive environment

gtramack — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 18:46:37 +0000

Written by Grace Tramack

Students have plenty to be proud of—awards, grades, extracurriculars—and graduating from a nationally ranked high school is an achievement in itself. However, with Gunn being located in Silicon Valley and having a close proximity to Stanford, a bragging culture is inevitably formed. Comparing SAT or ACT scores, grades and number of Advanced Placement classes is the norm at Gunn, breeding an unhealthy and unreasonable standard of competition that promotes perfection. Gunn’s bragging culture is toxic, as it hinders one’s ability to pursue personal interests, causes students’ self-esteem and sense of belonging to diminish and creates a dangerous cycle of boasting achievements.

By advocating this culture of overachievement, stu- dents are pressured to prioritize “impressive” activities or classes over their own passions. Palo Alto prides itself on being a diverse community, but diversity in extracur- riculars and hobbies is not as publicly promoted. Due to a clear focus on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) at Gunn and generally in the Silicon Valley, passions such as art, music or the humanities are often seen as useless to one’s future and of less value than STEM activities and clubs. Being interested in STEM is great if that is one’s passion, but adapting to the mentality that it is the only worthwhile pursuit can be detrimental to one’s emotional or mental state and overall success in life. It is of much greater value that students participate in activities they truly enjoy rather than partake in activities they feel pressured to do. According to the 2016-2017 California Healthy Kids Survey, only 31 percent of ninth graders and 36 percent of 11th graders at Gunn agree that they try hard at school because they are interested in their work. By bragging about a difficult class schedule or internships with more STEM values, students at Gunn undermine the importance of happiness through self-improvement in activities they love and replace it with those they believe will look better on their college application.

Another consequence of constant bragging is that it causes students’ confidence and sense of belonging to waver. Harvard University Neuroscientist Diana Tamir conducted an experiment about how talking about oneself and one’s experiences is a rewarding practice. People who participated in her experiment were more likely to talk about
themselves, even if it meant forgoing money. The culture of celebrating achievements here at Gunn manifests itself in the habit of comparison and boasting the highest score on a test or quiz. It teaches students that in order to feel pride, true satisfaction in one’s accomplishments must come from superiority over others, when in reality it should come from our own pride in our accomplishments. An unrealistic standard of perfection set by bragging peers causes those who receive lower test scores to begin to doubt themselves and their belonging in a school of such high achievers.

Finally, this culture is dangerous because the more it is perpetuated, the more it becomes part of daily life at Gunn. People start to discuss their accomplishments, and, feeling defensive and inferior, others retort with their own successes. Instead of being genuinely excited for the achievements of their peers, students’ first instincts are to boast about their own in order to prove themselves just as successful. Students are often left feeling doubtful of the value in their own performances and begin searching for validation through bragging. In the end, however, nobody benefits from these actions. Instead, those who are not as vocal about their accomplishments feel left behind, and tension and resentment betweenstudents grows.

The toxic bragging culture at Gunn inhibits the ability to pursue personal interests, causes self-esteem to decrease and creates a dangerous cycle that is ultimately dangerous to the wellbeing of students. While it is important to take pride in accomplishments, boasting excessively to friends and peers is destructive not only to their confidence but eventually to one’s own as well. It is more beneficial to everyone to be mutually happy for each other’s successes, no matter how seemingly insignificant.

Senior Jane Ahn places in top 50 for math in U.S.

bridgettegong — Fri, 31 Mar 2017 18:25:43 +0000

Written by Bridgette Gong

A combination of both passion and talent can go a long way, and for senior Jane Ahn, this certainly holds true. Ahn currently holds a spot in the top fifty for math in the nation. It began in middle school; Ahn was met with the opportunity to join the Jane Lathrop Stanford Math Counts team as she approached sixth grade. “I took the test and made it on the team, and ever since I’ve been participating in school-related math competitions.” Middle school provided Ahn with a solid background in math and was what sparked a passion that follows her to this day. “I was on the Mathcounts team for all three years in middle school, and when I came to high school I just kept doing math and now I’m part of the Gunn math circle ,” she said. “I’ve competed in all sorts of math competitions throughout all four years of highschool and do up to this day.” Over the years, Ahn’s interested in math has also grown. “I can say that math is my favorite subject because I like the math classes I took at Gunn and also just studying for math on my own outside of school,” she said. She has also taken time over the years to branch off to higher levels of math. “I’ve taken many classes outside of school on my own so I’ve gotten the chance to study concepts such as abstract algebra, group theory, linear algebra, multivariable calculus and other things that follow BC Calc,” she said.

Between studying, summer programs, and classes, math has become a very important role in Ahn’s day-to-day life. “I spend a lot of time doing math during weekdays, and I go to different kinds of math circles,” she said. “During weekends, I meet up with a group of friends and form study groups and over the summer I go to different mathematics camps.” Math has been not only a source of challenge and enjoyment, but also a way for Ahn to meet new friends from around the world. “I’ve met a lot of friends through math,” she said. “It’s really nice to meet other people who are so passionate about math, and it’s cool that when we talk we both share such a common interest.”

Ahn’s major involvement and background in arithmetic paves the way for a vast future in the field of math and science. “Right now my plan is to major in math and computer science in college which I’m really excited about,” she said. “There I’ll be able to experiment more with different kinds of mathematics and maybe figure out which type of math I really like.” The difficulties of her goals have also made the outcome feel more successful. “When I made MOP my junior year (Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program), a camp that invites the top 50 scores USAMO every year, and it’s a really prestigious camp and hard to get into,” she said. “I’d prepared for so long, and when I actually made it I was so happy, it was actually one of my proudest moments.”

The important figures in Ahn’s life have played major roles throughout the course of her math development, especially her math teacher. “The first person that actually got me doing math was Mr. Herreshoff, a math teacher here at Gunn,” she said. “He kind of inspired of inspired me to pursue it.” Ahn has found that the skills she picked up in math are also beneficial in other subjects as well. “Doing a lot of mathematics has helped me a lot in theoretical computer science because the two are closely connected, and it’s also made different kinds of sciences such as physics easier to pick up,” she said “The creative skills you need to use to solve problems is useful for any situation really, I find math skills usually always help.” To all those who struggle with math, Ahn has some tips based off her experiences. “This might sound like a really generic answer, but I think the most important thing is to like what you learn so if you don’t enjoy math just try to at least understand it and keep studying,” she said. “Keep building up all your skills, and it should work out in the end.”

Gunn girls compete in the Math Prize for Girls at MIT

The Oracle — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 19:31:00 +0000

Written by Evalyn Li

A group of Gunn girls attended the Math Prize for Girls competition at MIT from Sept.19 to Sept. 21. This year, senior Patricia Tang, juniors Shannon Yang, Maya Sankar and Jane Ahn and sophomore Sherry Chen attended the competition. To qualify, attendees must have taken either the American Math Competitions 10 or 12 last February and submitted an application last June. The top 300 applicants were invited to the competition.

Ahn and Sankar qualified for the Math Prize for Girls Olympiad. Courtesy of Jane Ahn

Ahn has participated in this competition since eighth grade. Her first year, she said, was the most eye-opening. “It was quite amazing to see 300 other people do math, see them win and just see how good they are,” Ahn said. “It was very inspiring; it got me to work harder in math and helped me come to this point.”

Sankar emphasized that this competition is a meeting place for girls in math. This is meaningful because she describes mathematics as a field in which girls are “discouraged” due to the seemingly high number of participating boys and consequently a culture that is already in place. “Well, at Gunn, we’re lucky there’s a pretty close female to male ratio in our math club, but at [most] math competitions it’s very common that there is all guys or just one girl on the team,” Sankar said. “I really like meeting other girls in math and seeing that they actually exist, and there are a lot of them.”

Ahn explained she enjoys meeting new people and that the Game Night, the night before the competition during which they play games, eat snacks, and socialize, is a fun pre-competition activity. “[It’s] the best part about this competition,” she said. “I was able to get touch with all my old friends and it was a good way to relax before the competition.”

This contest is also the qualifier for the Math Prize for Girls Olympiad. 30 girls take this four-hour, four-question, proof-based test. Sankar said that the Prize and the Olympiad, require slightly different approaches. “There is more room for creativity to do the Olympiad problems and you can just sink deeper in them,” Sankar said. Ahn and Sankar will participate in the Olympiad this coming November at Gunn.