The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper
Volume CIV No. 8
January 14, 2014
Stuy Squad 2013 was defined by its most riveting performances—from a freestyle rap battle done by three hilarious hosts, to a standout dancer in KPOP, to the intensive and risky choreography of Belly. This was the result of daily afterschool practices on the first and second floors, printed flyers taped all over the school, and the talent within these people itself. It was promised that Stuy Squad 2013 would be “the best show yet.” When the lights finally dimmed, the show that followed was a captivating showcase from start to finish. Despite a few setbacks, we think this performance definitely delivered. The most memorable parts of the show were the routines and the dancers who showed a touch of artistic brilliance. Contemporary, as Stuy Squad’s show opener, created a dramatic atmosphere with a reenactment of the haunting Phantom of the Opera
play with the song “Requiem for a Dream.” With dancers clad in white dresses representing Christine, and those in black dresses representing the phantom Erik, Contemporary tried to illustrate their desperate love story through push and pull movements and a dramatic ending in which the dancers tumble gracefully to the floor. The only downside to this otherwise great performance was the slightly repetitive twirls and gentle arm waves that seemed to flood the dance. Later on as expected, Rave proved to be an eye-catching sight, showcasing a new move involving intricate partnership as the pairs twirled around red and green glowsticks over interlocked arms, creating a pattern of concentric circles. In the distance, Rave created an electrifying display with streaks of light that formed infinity loops, figure eights, and circling paths. In our front row seats, we could discern the black-clad figures standing in pairs, communicating silently
Yasmeen Roumie / The Spectator Computer science teacher Peter Brooks and his budding Zero Robotics team await the final round of the Zero Robotics HS Competition, to be held at MIT on Friday, January 17.
If you’ve taken physics, you’ve probably learned about the workings of outer space: motion, attraction, and forces in zero gravity. But chances are that your application of that knowledge doesn’t extend much further than theoretical homework problems or simple laboratory experiments. A small, budding team at Stuyvesant takes Regents Physics to another level by combining it with computer science. The Zero Robotics team takes on the challenge of programming robots to maneuver in the International Space Station (ISS), 370 kilometers above the earth. Computer science teacher Peter Brooks is the coach and adviser of this team, which calls itself Stuy-Naught. It has participated in the Zero Robotics High School Competition every year since Zero Robotics’s founding by MIT in 2009.
Features
Not to be confused with the FIRST Robotics teams at Stuyvesant, the Zero Robotics team, comprised of Brooks and a dozen students, uses the C programming language to program spherical eight-inch-diameter robots called SPHERES to complete a different challenge each year. This year’s scenario is apocalyptic: a comet is headed straight for the teams’ home bases, and they have to do their best to divert it, either by shooting at it with lasers or by using gravitational attraction to move the comet aside. “A certain amount of this is fake,” Brooks said. The comets and the lasers are simulated in computers. The SPHERES themselves, though, are real: “During the competition, the astronauts actually set up the robots and set them in motion, and our computer programs are running the robots, and they start to move,” Brooks said. One major obstacle that this introduces, which programmers of the theoretical world do not Article on page 8.
Remembering Ned Vizzini News Editor Lindsay Bu and Features Editor Teresa Chen commemorate Ned Vizzini’s impact on their lives.
usually contend with, is the unpredictability of reality. “Numbers don’t come out exactly the way they should,” said mentor Dan Lavin, who also guides the FRC Robotics team. The random variations in physical outcome, even when the underlying code is exactly the same, are built into the online simulator that students use to test their code. Despite being an underclassman, sophomore Calvin Lee is leader of Stuy-Naught. Lee learned Python and Java and “how to apply them and use them for very cool projects,” he said, by taking the Art of Problem Solving’s online programming courses and attending Google’s Computing and Programming Experience. “I come up with the work that needs to be done,” Lee said. “I describe the process of making the actual code and then the team [...] can contribute with optimizing these values in the code.” Having overcome three cuts and making it into the finals, as it has every year since its inception, the team is now debating strategies and optimizing its code. For example, as Brooks explained, the team has to program the SPHERES to brake in space through the use of carbon dioxide-spraying nozzles. Many similarly small, seemingly easy tasks gain complexity in space and require ingenuity to perform efficiently. “In this competition, we have to get to a particular point in space and we have to rotate around it,” said Brooks. “It’s a non-trivial thing to do. We have certain tools, but [none] that say, ‘Please rotate around that.’” Out of 108 teams from around the country, only nine have made it to the finals. continued on page 4
Ashley Lin / The Spectator
By Teresa Chen and Jenny Jiang
Robots in Zero G: Stuy-Naught Makes Finals
By Philipp Steinmann and Johnathan Rafailov
stuyspec.com
Stuy Squad 2013: A Stunning Showcase
Newsbeat • NYC public schools were closed on Friday, January 3, as a result of a snowstorm. Up to 10.5 inches of snow accumulated in parts of New York City. • Freezing temperatures on Monday, January 6, caused elevators and water pipes to break down, flooding several classrooms and hallways. • The Stuyvesant Chess Team’s 10th and 12th grade divisions each placed first at the National K-12 Chess Championship in Florida. • Before Winter Recess, social studies teacher Robert Sandler invited to his Jewish History class author Peter Duffy, who wrote “The Bielski Brothers,” and Stuyvesant parent Sally Frishberg, known as the “Polish Anne Frank.”
“The Pulse of the Student Body”
Step was one of many commendable and creative performances that easily made this year’s Stuy Squad showcase “the best show yet.”
as they juggled the colored glow sticks in perfect synchronization, creating a unique form of partner dancing as the pairs stood with their arms outstretched, facing each other. Our favorite part? When two Ravers ran down the stage, spinning bright orange
glow sticks to create a ripple effect, and generating a resounding “woah!” from the audience.
continued on page 18
A Brilliant Farce By Ben Vanden Heuvel During its London premiere a few centuries ago, “Twelfth Night” must have had its Elizabethan audience members dying with laughter—at least when they weren’t trying to figure out what was happening. Today, in Broadway’s Belasco Theater, “Twelfth Night” is commanding one of the largest crowds ever attracted to a NYC Shakespeare production, inciting the same mixture of laughter, confusion, and then even more hysterical laughter as at its premiere in the seventeenth century. The play is one of Shakespeare’s most ingenious, humorous, and ridiculous inventions. A showcase of his wit, the brilliant farce is a truly magical experience if performed well, and this production by the English company Shakespeare’s Globe has a whole lot of magic. If you don’t read “Twelfth Night” before you see the production, it may be difficult to catch what’s going on in Shakespeare’s quick-witted dialogue. The crux of the story hinges on Viola and Sebastian, siblings of very similar appearance. The sister, masquerading as a boy, appears to be her brother’s identical twin, and a comedic series of misplaced affections occurs when the two characters’ identities begin to overlap. Only at the end does Shakespeare straighten out all the misunderstandings, with every character pairing off in an equally comedic happy ending. Starring as Lady Olivia is the critically acclaimed Mark Rylance, the most flamboyant lead member of an all-male, largely cross-dressing cast. The centerpiece of a complex string of Article on page 9.
confusion and misunderstandings that you might not grasp until some time after the show, Rylance’s performance is wonderfully overblown, bold, and sufficiently obnoxious. It’s captivating, perfectly suited, and totally hilarious, and it’s hard to forget his stiff strut as he shuffles across the stage complaining in a high-pitched falsetto. The cast surrounding Rylance also helps to deliver the complicated and fast-paced play with aplomb. Among the standouts are Stephen Fry as the unfortunate and bumbling Malvolio and Samuel Barnett as Viola. The latter faces the near-impossible task of being a man playing the part of a woman who is pretending to be a man. Somehow, though, he pulls it off brilliantly, achieving the right balance of humor and uncomfortableness. His performance is as convincing as a double gender switch could possibly be. The cast’s greatest strength is that they never detract from the original elegance of Shakespeare’s language, never overstepping their role as actors. They deliver their lines with clarity and simplicity, rarely overemphasizing, and at a relatively slow pace, which allows the audience to appreciate each clever line. Though “Twelfth Night” is classified as a dark comedy, this particular adaptation definitely leans more towards the comedy end, making use of over-the-top props—including a giant hatchet brandished by an innocent countess, copious amounts of beer, and an almost excessive focus on the bawdy humor. continued on page 19
Features Stuyvesant’s INTEL-igent Eleven
A brief, layman’s overview of the projects of Stuyvesant’s 11 Intel STS semifinalists.