ROBOTICS TEAM WINS AT BOTBALL COMPETITION
Penn Teaching Fellows Join Lawrenceville Faculty Lawrenceville welcomes four new Penn Teaching Fellows to its faculty this fall.
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branch of Lawrenceville’s Science and Robotics Club, the Robotics team, participated in the regional New York/ New Jersey Botball competition for the third time, winning both the Outstanding Documentation and Outstanding Overall Design awards in May. Led this past year by co-presidents Shrey Chowdhary ’17 and Ricky Williams ’17, as well as Science and Robotics Club president Neel Ajjarapu ’16, the Botball Educational Robotics Program helps middle- and high-school students to learn and master engineering and programming concepts through robotics. For
the Botball competition, teams must build and program their own robots from provided kits to complete a variety of tasks on a game board that varies from year to year. The robots are entirely autonomous: Once each round of the contest starts, the robots must be able to operate without any remote controllers, meaning teams must write code to run their robots as well as building them. Tasks this year included having a robot drive up a ramp and attempt to knock pompons off cubes and to return a plush doll to
each team’s starting box on the game table. In addition to performing well on the game board, teams must also complete a lengthy sequence of documentation projects to inform officials about the nature of their strategies and design. “After preparing for several weeks, it was nice to be recognized for some of our efforts,” said Ajjarapu, whose presentation on the team’s design site earned Lawrenceville the maximum number of points given for on-site documentation. – Ricky Williams ’17
The Fellows, novice teachers who work under the direction of Lawrenceville mentors, are completing the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education’s master’s program in teaching and learning. They join Lawrenceville’s faculty for two years as teachers, as well as coaches or assistants in the School’s Community Service Program. Each Fellow receives a House assignment, where he or she learns about (and becomes an important part of) Lawrenceville’s dynamic residential life curriculum. In addition to their Lawrenceville duties, the Fellows are learning – and bringing back to campus – the most current research on best educational practices through their studies at Penn.
Lawrenceville’s newest Penn Teaching Fellows are: • NOELLE NIU, Mathematics Department. M.A., in Classics, Boston College; B.A., double major in Classics and Mathematics, Amherst College.
• STUART ROBERTSON ’11, Visual Arts Department. B.A. in Studio Art, Davidson College.
• LISA SCOTT, Science Department. B.A. in History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health, Yale University.
• VICTORIA STITT, English Department. B.A. in Comparative Literature, with honors, and an honors minor in French, Swarthmore College.
A Sound Investment
Truman Semans ’45 P’87, trustee emeritus, hosted current and former members of the Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees and representatives of Cambridge Associates, Lawrenceville’s investment advisory firm, for an investment retreat at his Hobby Horse Farm in Hot Springs, Va., in August. Pictured, from left, are Mary Kate Barnes H’59 ’77 P’11 ’13 ’19, director of advancement; Bill Bardel ’57 P’93; Jack Luetkemeyer ’59; Michael Chae ’86, chair, Investment Committee; Darrell Fitzgerald ’68, vice president, Board of Trustees; Jeremy Mario ’88 P’16 ’20; Tom Carter ’70 P’01 ’05, president, Board of Trustees; Dan Tapiero ’86 P’20; John Waldron ’87; Semans; Head Master Steve Murray H’55 ’65 ’16 P’16; and Glenn Hutchins ’73. Not pictured is Seth Waugh ’76.
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