MIDDLE SCHOOL ROBOTICS TEAMS COMPETE AT STATE, FIRST TIME IN PROGRAM HISTORY
Courtesy Daniel Sogin
Both of SPA’s Middle School Lego League robotics teams competed in the State Tournament in February 2016. The two teams, known as the “Duplo Squad” and the “Duplo Squid,” both qualified for the tournament by placing in the top quartile of the Section tournament earlier in the year.
MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENT FILMS EARN STATE AND NATIONAL RECOGNTION Three student films created by 10 Middle School student filmmakers earned state and national recognition this year. Two of the films were created in SPA’s summer movie-making workshop, taught by Middle School social studies teacher Bobak Razavi. “Mr. Rudeer’s Shoes,” created by Sameer Bijwadia ’20, Sean Edstrom ’20, Neel Valeti ’21, Henry Vlietstra ’20, and Liam Will ’20; and “Santa Retires,” created by by Lara Cayci ’21 and Ethan Dincer ’19 were both selected for screening at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival. One film created as part of a Middle School mini-course in filmmaking, also taught by Razavi, was screened at the James Kennedy Film Festival in Minneapolis: “From the MixedUp Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” by Gavin Kimmel ’21, Jenny Ries ’21, and Clark Waltz ’20.
The highlight of the State Tournament was the Duplo Squid taking home second place in Robot Programming. Lego League coach and Middle School math teacher Daniel Sogin says that both he and the students were thrilled to have been two of the 70 teams to qualify for the tournament (of 650 total Minnesota teams). “The kids felt great about their accomplishment of placing in the top 10% of Minnesota teams,” says Sogin, who notes that Minnesota has the largest number of First Lego League teams in the United States. “It was fun to participate in the largest Middle School robotics tournament in the world,” he says.
SPA Summer Enrichment Workshops Mathematical Modeling and Forecasting for the Real World u Creative Science u MakerCamp: Explore-Make-Play u French Cooking and Conversation You Can Write a Novel! u Competition Math A Week at Hogwarts: Writing Workshop Rube Goldberg Machines u Film and Frolic: Movie Making Camp u Techno-Mathematics: Using Technology and Number Patterns to Understand Our World u Chess Camp u Debate Institute
www.spa.edu /summer www. spa.e du
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