Hello All!
It’s that time of year again where we are going on winter break. Since we will be off for 2 weeks, we wanted to let you know that there will not be any new content until January 6th.
Given that, this is a great chance to go and re-read favorites, or check out articles you haven’t had a chance to see.
We hope everyone has a good end of 2024 and start of 2025. We also hope you keep following us and checking out our content!
Thanks – HPSH Plaid Line
By: Yohan Lee
What is the space shuttle? The space shuttle was the first reusable spacecraft and since it could be flown again it helped reduce the cost of each launch. It could take off in a vertical take off and could land like a plane.
The space shuttle was built by NASA and during earlier space missions such as the Apollo program, NASA had to build 15 different Saturn V rockets. But for the space shuttle, NASA only had to build 5.
The first space shuttle launch was on April 12, 1981 and the final landing was on July 21, 2011. The space shuttle fleet flew over 135 missions. Some of the space shuttles are in museums in California, New York, Florida, and Washington D.C.
In early 2011 you could see the space shuttle on top of a 747 before it was retired.
Here are some of the technical specifics of the space shuttle.
COMPONENTS
Orbiter:
In the cabin it contained living quarters, workstations, and controls for up to seven astronauts. The space shuttle had a payload bay for carrying satellites, scientific equipment, and components for the International Space Station. The payload could be found on top of the space shuttle. There were three powerful engines used during liftoff, fueled by the external tank.
Thermal Protection System:
The Thermal Protection System was made of heat resistant tiles and blankets that protected the orbiter from the heat during reentry.
Canadarm:
A Canadarm is a long robot arm and it was used for manipulating payloads, assembling structures in orbit, and capturing satellites.
External Tank:
The External Tank was the huge orange fuel tank located at the bottom of the space shuttle. It was made out of an aluminum-lithium alloy to minimize weight. It was used to fuel the space shuttle during its launch into space, then it would detach from the space shuttle and burn up in the atmosphere.
Solid Rocket Boosters:
The Solid Rocket Boosters are the long white rockets that were attached to the fuel tanks. They were used for an additional set of thrust for takeoff before they detached. They were made out of aluminum and ammonium perchlorate. They were also fitted with a parachute for an ocean landing so NASA could reuse that rocket.
Orbital Maneuvering Systems:
The Orbital Maneuvering Systems was a small engine that allowed the space shuttle to make small adjustments in space. 2 of them could be found at the back of the space shuttle.
By: Julia Yang
Tangotek, otherwise known as “Tango” for short, is a Minecraft YouTuber most known for being on the ‘Hermitcraft’ server. ‘Hermitcraft’ is currently one of the most popular SMP’s around the Minecraft community along with others such as ‘Lifesteal’ and the ‘QSMP’.
Tango enjoys making a variety of games on ‘Hermitcraft’; one of his most successful and loved ones being in season 9 called ‘Decked Out 2’. All of these games are made in a vanilla survival world usually over the course of a couple of months, to a year, based on the complexity of the redstone.
Tango always streams the process of making the games live on his Twitch channel as he can get tips from his very intelligent viewers in the chat. They’re a huge help at solving bugs and coming up with unique ideas, making his life just a little bit easier.
His most recent game, only to be finished and opened to the rest of the server on December 6th, is called ‘Hungry Hermits’. ‘Hungry Hermits’ is based off of the party game ‘Plate Up’ where you are to serve customers the correct food they order whilst juggling 4 other activities and orders at the same time.
The game ‘Hungry Hermits’ goes by in “days” just like ‘Plate Up’ would. There are 8 days in total, and as each day goes on, the orders and number of customers get harder and harder.
As much as I’d like to sit here and explain every mechanic in full detail, I will do my very best to dumb it down to its simplest form.
The customers are fun and customized with the heads of the other Hermits (members of the server), they can leave a little bit of a mess and all of them have armor stand animations that tell you how much patience they have left. If a customer loses their patience, it’s game over. Your goal is to get their order and make it happen before their patience or the day runs out.
In the kitchen, the basic tools are a crafter, a cauldron, an ordering system, the freezer, a campfire to cook food, and the flood room.
To craft things you may need for food in later days, like gold to make a golden carrot, you must order from the ordering system and use the crafter to break the gold down into nuggets. Or maybe you’re making a cookie, where you will need to craft it using the crafter— but be warned, the crafter is a lot slower than any player would like.
The cauldron is simply used to get water for water bottles when customers order it. Although, once in a while, you just may need to refill the cauldron if it runs out.
The ordering system is a lectern with a book on it. You choose the item you want by going to the corresponding page, and press the button above where it will deliver your item to you in a matter of seconds.
You get frozen meats like cod, pork, and chicken from the freezer by throwing a snowball into a target block. But the freezer, if I’m being honest with you, is a death trap. The freezer is a one-way road where if your partner isn’t there to open the door for you from the outside, you can and will die from hyperthermia. There have already been countless deaths from the freezer in the test runs.
The campfire, as I stated before, is used to cook things that may need to be cooked. Stuff like raw meat or potatoes.
The flood room is how to prevent a flood hazard from happening. An alarm will go off, then one player must stand on a pressure plate near the freezer while the other player must run to the complete opposite end and turn a valve to stop the flood. If you fail to do so in time, the kitchen will be flooded with water, causing a mild inconvenience.
Another hazard is rats. Underneath the restaurant are running hopper minecarts that will suck up any items thrown onto the floor. If sucked up, it will trigger the rat hazard. The rats are really just silverfish, but either way, they’ll drop down into your kitchen and attack you.
The last hazard as of December 10th (Tango is prone to add more updates later on) is the phone. The phone will occasionally ring, if you fail to answer it after the 4th ring, you will lose 4 points from your overall score. Another mechanic for the phone is that you can ring it on your own accord which will make customers arrive to your restaurant faster, making it harder but you will gain more points.
As you work in the kitchen, you may also work in the back area that is the farm. On the farm, you’ll do farm-y things. You’ll collect wheat, carrots, beetroot, melon, pumpkin, potato— basically 70% of the food traffic relies on you. Get it to your partner running the front house, and you can retreat back to your barn and get ready for future orders or work on the load of current orders.
Tango has always had a knack for creating incredible games in vanilla Minecraft, and as much as I also love ‘Decked Out 2’ as much as the next fan, I personally really like ‘Hungry Hermits’ just a bit more.
‘Hungry Hermits’ uses the armor stand mod the server has installed to its fullest extent, along with the disc, note block, and player head mod. The choice of making it a solely multiplayer game is just so enjoyable. I think I like this game a bit more because I really enjoy watching the Hermits interact with each other, it’s really the only reason why I watch ‘Hermitcraft’, and in ‘Decked Out 2’ it was a solely single player game.
As I said before, Tango has only just rendered it playable and open to play on the server, meaning that you can still catch livestreams and episodes actively coming out!
Tango usually uploads the replays of his streams to his second channel “Tangotek2” if you can’t catch them live on your own time. Plus, you’ll really only find Hermits playing rounds of ‘Hungry Hermits’ on Tangotek2 because it’s often easier to just stream it rather than having a 2 hour episode on the main channel. This also happened with ‘Decked Out 2’ where he just streamed all of the runs instead of making episodes— I’m really starting to wonder what the real main channel is.
Visit Tangotek or Tangotek2 for way more information than what I gave you, and have fun watching Hermits play ‘Hungry Hermits’!
By: Daniel Kendle
(This is a satirical article, and is meant to be read like a YouTube video).
What’s crackin’ guys, it’s me, millionaire YouTube sensation MrYeast back again in another banger of a video! Over the years, after witnessing my vast amount of riches, many fans of mine have asked the same question: “MrYeast, what happened to those orphans you sent to that spacecraft testing facility?” Now, normally I say something to the effect of ‘hard work and integrity’ being key in financial prosperity, but it seems that my former advice has fallen on deaf ears – and I want to change that.
Guys, in today’s video I intend to help all of you at home to become insanely rich and powerful, all in a few easy steps. Curated with help from my brokers at Wall Street, this guide will teach all you guys the secrets of my life, and how I’ve gotten to where I am today. By the end of this, you should be equipped with all the tools you need to become the strongest foe in your local banking system. After all, rich millionaires to the middle class are what powerful warlords were to literal mud hundreds of years ago in the Middle Ages.
But with that intro out of the way, guys, prepare to have your life changed forever.
. . .
As any millionaire knows, gaining a plethora of money and gold requires support from others. Yes, even in our society’s cut-throat world of economics, the most fundamental step of beginning an empire of wealth relies on the help of those around you.
(Snickers) Oh, you guys thought I was talking about family? Fat chance scrubs, none of that sissy talk is permitted around here. I absorbed my brother in the womb; felt like bliss doing so too.
No, I’m not talking about your friends and family for support. Nor am I talking about “friendly” relations with others leading to the high life. Rather, let’s just say I’m sweet on more totalitarian practices.
Since I’m writing this in a school newspaper in order to appeal to the child demographic, I can’t exactly be very specific about what I’m referring to. But in ease of tongue, you might want to approach people to join your financial team, um, forcefully. Threatening others with mortal harm is often a sure-fire way to gain employees, and, as it happens, boost office morale. It’s seldom pretty, and often a bit cruel, but it serves the middle class right for being within my general vicinity. My oxygen is laced with a gaseous platinum mixture, after all.
Guys, if you’re struggling to find people, just do what I’m doing right now: advertise to kids! These little sprouts of frenzy and frivolous inconvenience make for a rapid force for future plans of yours, especially for gathering resources if you spec into industrial manufacturing. Remember the golden rule, guys: ‘you can’t say the word “minor” without saying “miner.”
Of course, some may think of child labor as immoral, and a few elitists may even call it illegal! I sympathize with these folk, but at the end of the day, the American Dream was never realized through plights of kindness and empathy. Nay: cold, hard cash comes through determination to the end…no matter the casualties lost in the process.
Still though, guys, make sure you pay your employees well: being a good person isn’t fun, as I’ve said, but maybe a bit of compassion for others is… alright, I suppose. 🙂
To end this section, you might still be confused on how exactly you go about finding new employees. Here’s my method, with an example. Recently, the boys and I were out on a small road trip when we encountered a weird man walking alongside the road. He was strange: had antlers, talked to himself about some game, and kept pantomiming himself smelling non-existent flowers. What a nut! So when he was distracted miming again, we lassoed him and tied him up in our van, brought him to our factory in the woods, and currently have him locked in an experimenting chamber. It’s that simple, folks – just fetch a carriage and circle around neighborhoods at night. Easy-peasy!
Now that you’ve got a small battalion of adults and kids alike under your wrath, it’s time to invest in getting those big, big bucks! Grab your army, head off into an undisclosed location in the woods, and let’s begin the money-making process.
To find the perfect starter industry to dive into, let’s review the obvious: people all over the world like different things, but some things, like food, cars, and clothes are indispensable for daily life. Thus, picking 1 of the 3 is preferred. For ease, I’ll pick cars for today’s article.
Now that you’ve found an industry, go out and hit the books! It’s likely you don’t know how to make a car (if you do, then great!), so mosey on down to your local library and go rent some ‘Mighty Machines’ DVDs. That, and maybe nab a $1,000,000,000 loan. We’ve a factory to construct!
It’ll probably take a while to make a giant building with your army, especially since the woods is prone to bears, who enjoy plagiarism (I’ve had much experience with bears in the past, don’t worry). Don’t fret, young grasshopper: after multiple years of toiling away at this building, you’ll finally have a completed car factory – or, whatever essential product you’ve chosen to mass produce. Remember: Rome may not have been built in a day, but then again, the Roman Empire walked so you could run.
Luckily, building a forested mill was the hardest part of this venture: making cars is the easy bit. After concluding my studies, I’ve found that attaching 4 tires to a log, then spray-painting it metallic gray will trick anyone into thinking it’s a Tesla. I mean, wood carving a car’s never been easier since the introduction of the Cybertruck: simply cut jagged lines willy-nilly into the wood. Simplistic modern design’s already caused the art world’s current apocalypse; the automobile market might as well suffer too.
With your car crusade underway, expansion is inevitable. Want to make more cars? Easy: trees are all around you. Want to invest in different fields of merchandise? Build off of what you’ve done so far, use intuition to predict the future economy’s rises and slopes, and follow accordingly. You’ve established a big-boy big-girl industrial cult; nothing’s gonna keep you from stopping here.
Finally, we must address the elephant in the room: what if your workforce revolts, becoming tired of your sadistic ways? I mean, murder’s fun, but after a while you need better fuel sources than the bodies of the darned for a good reason: it smells bad! Also it’s, like, a felony, or whatever.
Thankfully, I’ve got you covered again. Creating a new societal structure and/or religion is a headache for most, but I’ve taken on the burden already and devised my own in preparation for you newbies. For the short version, it’s generally agreed that the state (you) should have complete control over your subjects, even though they remain free individuals who can decide things on their own time. All should be equal, with none having power over the other. The exception is you, since your army should see you as more of a divine vigil than mortal. You are able to sell cars made out of wood, now.
Another important part of your society should be the suppression of outside forces. This includes both physical media and objects, as well as, more-importantly, people and their ideologies against your new civilization. If you want your subjects and loyalists to remain, erm, loyal, then snuff out negative ideas of change and revolt. The devotion to the state is KEY in your control over others. This connects to your economy as well: no outside currencies may enter your settlement, as to not persuade the masses to leave.
A lot of what I’ve been stating has been very anti-communication. Communication, or lack thereof, is what’ll drive your society forward into technological advancement. Making sure your empire is cut off from the rest of the world is what ensures the flow of money, and the commitment of the public. Thus, I’ve decided to coin this novel political movement “Communism.”
Use these fundamentals alongside brute force, and your empire is set for further success.
. . .
…aaand I think that’ll do it, guys! This is merely a “starter kit” for capitalist propaganda, but through the emancipation of the innocent, Communist ideologies, and maybe some wooden Teslas, you’ll be off to the races – the Arms races. Who knows, guys – maybe you’ll be the ones to invent the world’s first nuclear missiles made of, I dunno, silt, or something.
If you continue down this path I’ve laid out, outer space is inevitable. Why commit to conquering 1 planet when you could do more? Your empire’s set up for global submission; the world’s at your knees (really, I’m just glad someone’s finally gonna make bears go extinct…).
But guys, I think that’ll be it for today’s rad-tastic video. I hope you have a wonderful time letting the United Nations grovel at your feet. With control over the global automobile industry handled, soon another market will be yours to rule – the entire human population. Remember to like, subscribe, and share, and I’ll catch you in the next video, where I plan on using critically-endangered Snow Leopard fur as new packaging material for my “Yeastables” candy bars whilst juggling jars of human phlegm. Later, internet!
By: Kumari Wijetunge
During winter break many people will leave town or even the country to see family and friends or just for a vacation, but some people will stay home during break. And since many places are closed and friends are out of town, winter break can seem boring or lonely, so here are five things you can do during break to keep yourself busy and make the most of it.
Visit a local Christmas market:
Christmas markets are a great way to take in local Minnesota traditions and Christmas spirit. Here are some options: European Christmas market in St. Paul, which is held in Union Depot, has over 70 different vendors, holiday themed activities, and live entertainment. Another notable option is Dayton’s Holiday Market in Minneapolis. Located in the Nicollet Mall this market has a mix of festive decor, holiday treats, and local artisans. These markets are great places to visit during break.
Visit a llama farm:
There are a few great llama farms in Minnesota and many of these locations let you feed, pet, and take photos with them. Places like Carlsons’s Llovable Llama in Waconia and Pauley Alpaca company in Rochester are awesome places to hang out with some llamas!
Ice castles:
Minnesota Ice Castles have super impressive ice structures, the location changes every year and prices vary depending on what day you go. But no matter what, it’s a super fun experience with ice slides, caverns, tunnels, and many more exciting adventures in ice.
Art Shanty Projects:
The Art Shanty Projects is an immersive art program that takes place on the frozen surface of Minneapolis’ Bdé Umán/Lake Harriet.
Saint Paul Winter Carnival:
The Saint Paul Winter Carnival invites a great lineup of events to experience in Saint Paul. It is the oldest winter festival in the United States. Many events that the carnival offers are free, both traditional favorites and new attractions, that cater to all ages.
By: Nathaniel de Sam Lazaro
On Saturday, December 7th, Highland Park’s robotics team, the Automatons, competed in the MinneTrials robotics competition.
MinneTrials is a competition hosted by team 2239, Technocrats, in Hopkins. The robots are built for a game separate from the one used in the main competition season, which occurs from January to April each year. These robots are constructed by first and second year members of the team, while third and fourth year students serve as mentors. This is designed to teach newer students the skills necessary to work on a robot once the older students have graduated.
The competition was hosted in the gym of L.H. Tanglen Elementary, which is located next to Hopkins High School. Ten teams competed, though two teams had multiple robots, so the total number of robots competing was twelve.
The game consisted of 21 qualification matches, with alliances of two robots competing against each other. This meant that each robot competed in approximately every third match. Prior to the qualification matches, there were also two rounds of practice matches.
Our team won one of our two practice matches, but there was some confusion over the rules of the game.
Unfortunately, the rest of the competition was met with technical issues that had to do with our robot. In one match, the robot emergency stopped for thirty seconds. In another, we realized that the laptop we had planned to use to control the robot had not been charged.
In the end, we ended up losing all but one of our qualification matches, and were ranked tenth out of twelve.
After the qualification matches, the top four teams were able to pick another team to form playoff alliances. Unfortunately, we were not picked to compete in the playoffs.
While the competition did not go as we had hoped, we are glad to have learned from the experience. After the competition, our team had a meeting to discuss what happened and the general consensus seemed to be that the first and second year students were glad to have had this experience. This was our first year competing in the competition, and we are planning to return next year and hope for a better result.
By: Norah Hoglund and Max Cahoon
While chocolate chip cookies are very delicious, what is even better is peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. We tried this recipe out because right now is the perfect time to make cookies and share them with your friends and family. Just make sure no one is allergic to peanut butter!
Review
Taste
These cookies had such a good taste; we would say they were probably some of the best cookies we have ever made. The peanut butter makes them really really good because the saltiness of the peanut butter contrasts the sweetness of the cookie and it is a really great flavor, especially if you love peanut butter. A lot of people know that chocolate and peanut butter go really well together, and that fact does not change in this instance.
All of the ingredients in this cookie just go very well together and make for a great cookie. It is also not too sweet, due to the peanut butter. When they came warm fresh out of the oven, they were the best. We had them with milk and we agreed that they were some of the best cookies ever.
The only downside is that once you taste them when they are warm it’s a little underwhelming when you eat them at room temperature, but you can always warm them up.
Our rating: 9.9/10
Ease of making
These cookies were a bit of a challenge to make. We decided to brown the butter (see how in the recipe notes), even though the recipe doesn’t call for it, because it makes for a richer cookie. The recipe said to melt the butter anyway, so we browned it in a pot and added the peanut butter to the butter.
Once we had mixed together all the wet ingredients and dry ingredients, we mixed the two together. The dough then was very thick and we had to mix it with our hands because a whisk or spatula couldn’t mix it.
We filled up two trays with all of our dough and decided to put both trays in the oven at the same time, to save time baking them. The only thing we had to change was to bake them for 2-3 extra minutes.
The rest of the instructions were fairly easy and these cookies were definitely worth the effort we put into them. It was also a really fun experience making these, especially if you love baking. Our rating: 8/10
Overall
Overall, these cookies were so delicious and fairly easy to make for a high-quality cookie recipe. These cookies were very good and absolutely worth all of the effort we put into them. It was a fun experience. We rate this recipe a 9/10 and you should absolutely try it.
Here is the link to the recipe: https://handletheheat.com/peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies/
Recipe
Ingredients
Instructions
NOTE: to brown butter, cook it in a pan on medium heat until it turns golden brown. This should be 5-7 minutes after it melts.
By: Cleo Newton
For about the last year, ‘Sky: Children of the Light’ has been my favorite mobile game.
It’s a game where you have to find and gather winged light (which take the form of glowing children). After acquiring your first winged light, you form a cape and your first wedge. This wedge is the amount of times you can flap in a row before having to recharge when flying. The amount of times you can flap is displayed on your cape to other players. The cape in this game is key when flying, without one, you can’t fly. Flying is crucial in many parts of this game; you may not be able to get to certain places if you can’t fly. The animation for the capes in this game mimics the way wings flap.
You can gather more winged light as you explore the world and discover new places. In each place, there’s a shrine where you can log down the new area and add it to your map.
There’s a reason why this game is called ‘Children of the Light’, in the game, there are supposedly no adults (they have all passed). All the adults are spirits. Spirits are another important aspect in this game. As you find more spirits, you get to relive a short but important part of their life. After finding out their story, you gain an emote, or in some cases, a new voice (The voice changes every time you “honk”).
Honking can be used to find other players in the game or to summon nearby butterflies. These butterflies can be used to recharge your cape. Another use for honking is to flip over crabs. The crabs in the game are hostile and will attack you, “yelling” to flip them over keeps them from hurting you.
Throughout the game, you’ll find red candles with bits of light/wax floating above the flame. You can collect these and use the wax to forge candles; these candles are your main form of currency in Sky. You can use it to buy cosmetics from the spirits or from temple elders. Cosmetics include pants, masks, hair, capes, and props.
In this game, you can light up other players with your candle to see what they look like; it’s kind of like saying hi. After this, you can spend a candle to either talk to them on a nearby bench (if available) or friend them. If you don’t want to spend a candle to friend someone, you can send them a code which then can be typed into a bar (in settings).
Sky has annual events that last a few weeks. During this time, you can buy limited time cosmetics and props. You can also do this with the seasons Sky hosts. The seasons are like events but last longer and have more things you can buy.
Lastly, there are different realms you can explore. The last one being “The Eye of Eden”. Here, you climb a mountain before giving your winged light away to statues. I think these statues represent fallen skykids. After giving away all your winged light, you die and then get reborn. Part of getting reborn means you get ascended candles, a more difficult form of currency to acquire.
After getting reborn, you will lose all your winged light but you will also gain a new winged light which will be added onto the total count after you regather all your winged light again.
After reading this, I hope you’ll consider playing ‘Sky: Children of the Light’. I would give it a 4.5/5.
You can play ‘Sky: Children of the Light’ on multiple platforms including, the Switch, Steam, and mobile devices (Android & Apple IOS).
By: Christine Yang
The Marías is a psychedelic-soul lovechild of Puerto Rican-bred band with María Zardoya, Josh Conway, Jesse Perlman, and Edward James. The EP ‘Superclean, Vol II’ was released on September 28, 2018, with six songs on it. The EP is a blend between alternative and indie (Latin indie).
“Ruthless”:
“Ruthless” can be about someone who’s in love with somebody that they haven’t seen in awhile, but still have affections towards them and want to have a relationship with them.
“Cariño”:
“Cariño” can be interpreted as a song to appreciate a romantic lover, and how you find peace just being with them. Or it can be about someone you love and how you’re telling them they’re special in many different ways.
“ABQ”:
The song “ABQ” can be interpreted as about anxiety, how you feel this constant feeling that you’re never alone and crave that loneliness or time with yourself.
On a personal level, it’s about María Zardoya’s struggle with anxiety of not wanting to let anyone down, and having so much pressure to get things done (songs related) to please the audience, but also be on track with her band members too.
“Loverboy”:
“Loverboy” is about a partner being unfaithful towards you, and how you can’t really process or accept that fact, but also can’t bear to hear a word from their mouth.
“Over the Moon”:
“Over the Moon” is an idiomatic expression that means a state of extreme happiness. It’s also viewed as a bittersweet love song about the struggles of an uncertain but passionate relationship.
“Clueless”:
“Clueless” is about a relationship that failed due to not being able to handle it anymore (due to lack of emotional awareness, miscommunication, and growing apart). Also, being confused about their words/actions, and having moments of being able to feel free, but being reminded of them.
Overall, I would give ‘Superclean, Vol II’ a 10/10.
By: Pwe Doh Gay
This is a drawing of another zentangle but in a deck of cards style. I really thought that the second zentangle looked really good, so I wanted to make an even better one for the last zentangle drawing.
For this picture, I used a pencil to make the cards and patterns. Then first went over that with an ultra-fine point Sharpie, then with a fine-point Sharpie, to fill in some of the white spots.
I really like how this one turned out. I think this is my favorite one out of all three zentangles I made. I really like how different this one looks from the others. The patterns just look cool inside of the cards. My favorite pattern is the ten of diamond card. The one that I don’t like is the X shape pattern with the dots in it, on the ace card.
For my next drawing, I will make something else, but I don’t know what I will make yet, but I think it will probably be something that will include color.
Plaid Line + PRIZM + Scottie News 