Category Archives: Entertainment

Clubs and Activities, Tech/Games

HPHS Robotics

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This weekend, the Highland Park robotics team are hopping on a bus and going to Duluth to compete in the 2017 First Robotics Steamworks Competition. This competition will determine if the team will move on to the worldwide competition in St. Louis later this year.

For those of you who don’t know, First Robotics competitions work like this: every year First Robotics creates a challenge, this year it’s “Steamworks,” they lay out a field of play for the robots to traverse, and complete unique challenges in order to earn points, to eventually win the match. One challenge this year was to make your robot climb a rope onto an “airship.” Another was to make the robot throw wiffle balls into a boiler in order to “power” the airship.

When the match starts, the first 15 seconds are called “the autonomous period.” This is where the robots do pre-programmed tasks and deliver pre-loaded game pieces. After the 15 seconds expire, the team’s drivers take over for the last 2 minutes, and 15 seconds, of the match. In this time, teams might try to defend an objective, or complete some of their own. The team’s drivers have to be some of the most talented people on the team as one crucial mistake could mean the end for your team’s season.

Behind the scenes are the build team, the business team, and the programming team. During the six-week long build season, the build team comes together to actually turn their designs into reality. This job takes skill, and the ability to work with your hands. During the hectic build season they must work hard to assemble a robot that can physically accomplish all the methods of winning. According to freshman Alexander “Zuperman17” Busch, the hardest part of being on the build team is managing your time properly in order to finish everything with time to spare. “I mostly like the snacks,” He said jokingly.

The business team works with local businesses in order to get sponsorships, and to manage the team’s finances. One member of the business team, Greta Shore, says robotics helped her follow her passion for science, engineering, and technology. “It helped me develop relationships with upperclassmen,” she said with a “dab.”

In contrast to the large rosters of the build team and business team, the programming team is much smaller with only two members. One member of the programming team, Alexis, said, “Robotics is challenging, but fun, and very rewarding!”

Overall, robotics isn’t about the competition, according to the FRC (First Robotics Competition), it’s about the cooperation, or working with other teams, and with your team, to accomplish goals. That’s what really makes robotics special; it’s the “varsity sport of the mind.” It’s extremely different than many other sports because two teams can win the match. Robotics combines the precision of an athlete, the smarts of mathlete, and the determination of a boxer.

For all of you who want to join an after school activity, but don’t know what to join, the robotics team always welcomes you.

Entertainment

The 89th Academy Awards

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On Sunday, February 26th, the 89th Academy Awards will air on television. They’re going to be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, and a total of twenty-four awards will be given out. They range from the big ones (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director) to the smaller ones (Sound Mixing, Makeup and Hairstyling), but all of these aspects are vitally important to creating a complete movie for us in the audience to enjoy.

The movies nominated for Best Picture, the most prestigious award of all, are as follows:

  • La La Land: a musical romance set in modern-day Los Angeles starring Emma Stone as an actress and Ryan Gosling as a jazz musician
  • Arrival: a science fiction movie about a linguist who’s brought in to translate the language of a mysterious spaceship
  • Hacksaw Ridge: a true story, from World War II, about an army medic named Desmond Doss; the only American soldier to fight on the front lines of the war without a weapon
  • Hell or High Water: a crime drama about two brothers who work together to rob a bank that is foreclosing on their family land
  • Hidden Figures: a true story about the African American women who did the math to put men in space
  • Fences: a drama about an African American man who’s eaten away by the fact that he’s too old to play in the major leagues
  • Lion: a drama about an Indian boy who, twenty-five years after being separated from his family, attempts to find them again
  • Moonlight: a movie telling the story of a young black man from childhood to adulthood on the streets of Miami.

As is rather standard for the Oscars, most of the nominees are drama films or biopics. This year, a full half of the movies focus on people of color, a stark change from last year when the Oscars received widespread criticism for the lack of nonwhite nominees. Also interesting about this year’s list of nominees is the presence of the film Arrival, considering that it is rare for a science fiction movie to be nominated for Best Picture.

The red carpet will start at 6:00 PM, and the award ceremony itself will begin at 7:30 Central Time, airing on ABC.

Advice/How To, Tech/Games

How to get off your phone

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The are so many ways that  teens can get off their phones, especially in school, during church services, and also at the dinner table. Here are a few that might help.

  • One way to get off your phone is to turn off your data when you are in class, church, or at dinner. If you also turned your notifications off, it would help.
  • You can also uninstall things that you don’t really use, so it won’t take anymore of your time sorting through them.
  • You can also set a specific time to get on your phone and when to get off of it, and you can set a charging station outside your room so you don’t look at it.
  • Also, leave your phone home when you go to church or dinner.

There are many more ways to try to get off your phone, but these are just a few simple ideas.

Editorials/Student Voice, Sports, Tech/Games

How eSports and traditional sports compare

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Esports, maybe you’ve heard a lot about them, but most people have no idea what they are or why they’re popular. For people who aren’t familiar with video games, it might seem confusing why people would want to watch someone play a game that they could just play by themselves. If you think about the premise though, it’s very similar to “real” sports.

Let’s just start with the premise of the competition and tournaments. In traditional sports, teams compete through a long regular season where they play games weekly, and at the end of the season whoever is at the top of the standings will advance to the playoffs, and perhaps the championships. In most eSports, it works almost exactly the same. For example, in the extremely popular eSport, League of Legends, there is a six month long regular season, and a world tournament at the end of the year. So, just by the basic structure of the leagues and competition, the two entities are similar.

Another way that traditional sports and eSports are similar is the formalities of competition. You may think that video game tournaments are just messy, loud rooms filled with nerds staring at screens, but in reality it’s a highly organized event. Teams wear jerseys, shake hands, have equipment sponsors, coaches, substitutes, referees, announcers, and large live audiences. All these things exist in both sporting realms. It was through obtaining these things that eSports was able to get the attention of big investors, and become the nightmare of traditional TV producers.

One way that eSports have gained recognition is just the sheer number of people that love and watch them. Online viewership for eSports happens on video game streaming websites like Twitch and YouTube and has skyrocketed in the past few years with events like the Counter Strike Global Offensive championships garnering 2.2 million concurrent viewers (1.2 million off the internet and 1 million people on TV, according to dextro.com), smashing the record for concurrent viewers of any eSport. The way that professional video gaming is able to attract so much attention is through their platform. People who play their game will see notifications for an ongoing eSport event when they log in, allowing the companies to target an audience they know will be interested in watching the matches.

A final way to compare traditional sports and eSports is the players themselves, but obviously physical athletes are much more in shape than the average eSports competitor so let’s consider the training hours. Most sports teams will spend up to 5 hours a day training, working out, revising strategy and reviewing film. The average eSports team spends 9-12 hours a day training, and although playing video games may not be as strenuous physically it can a exhausting, draining effect, and the players have to pour just as much energy and focus into their work as other athletes do. A big concern for physical athletes is injuries, but those do happen in eSports as well. The most common sorts of injuries are wrist, finger, and elbow, but often mental injuries can occur as well. When you play a seemingly silly game in front of 12,000 people, for 10 million dollars (basically your only chance of getting a real salary that year), after training for 12 hours a day stress related problems often happen. Recently a big victory was scored for all of eSports when Riot Games lobbied the US Citizen and Immigration Services to make P-1 athletic visas available to professional gamers, to allow them to traverse from tournament to tournament easily.

Recently, eSports have been gaining more recognition throughout the world, and as time goes on the industry will only grow. The biggest question surrounding eSports today is whether they will ever be able to compete with the likes of the NFL and other major sports leagues. In my honest opinion, those sports will never be topped by video games, but maybe, someday, the two could be equal.

Editorials/Student Voice, School Life, Tech/Games

The issue of technology in the classroom

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In the past few years, there has been a huge advancement in technology. This technology is being used for education (for example: school issued iPads). Even though the idea of technology is a good idea for helping children learn, it is also creating a distraction for their learning. In St. Paul Public Schools, there are many kids that are distracted by either their iPads or cell phones in the classroom (playing on them instead of doing their school work). This is causing them to not focus and learn, which can result in bad tests scores and low grades. 

One of the issues with school iPads is the App Store which allows kids to download and play games on the device. In the last year, there have been fixes that have taken the App Store off of school iPads. This helped for awhile, until kids figured out how to either get the App Store back or they found other ways to play games. The App Store battle is a constant issue which is continuing to cause kids to be distracted in the classroom.

Another issue is the use of cell phones. Each teacher has different rules about phones but kids still use them to “listen to music while doing work.” There have been studies proving that listening to music is more of a distraction than a help for doing work (for an example see: http://www.spinedu.com/listen-music-studying/).

One more issue with cell phones is that if a student doesn’t have an iPad with them, they say they will just use their phones to do the work. The problem with this is A) the screens of cell phones are small so it is difficult to produce quality work and B) without the school iPad app restriction, the student is able to do anything on their phone even if they say they are doing work.

Since school issued iPads, and personal cell phones, are both an issue in a learning environment, there should be someone who looks into enforcing more efficient rules for the use of these devices in the classroom.

School Life, Tech/Games

Programming at HPSH

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ianHighland offers a wide range of electives. Electives can be used to explore studies outside the core curriculum. Electives offered are anything from sports and journalism, to photography and programming. I am here today to talk about one particular elective: computer science with Mr. Peterson.

Back in my Junior year, I took computer programming as an elective. I liked my experience, as I thought the class was fun but simple, and Mr. Peterson was a great guy. The class taught me how to use Scratch and Google Sketchup, and unlike a lot of other classes, he gave us a lot of creative freedom. Most assignments had an end goal requirement, like “have it multiplayer” or “draw a house,” but anything else was up to us. We could decide what kind of multiplayer game it was, and what the details of the houses were.

Perhaps the reason why I did so well in the class, was because I had experience in programming and model design. As a kid I had always been very creative and loved Legos. Eventually, I turned to video games, but my creativity stayed the same. In games like Minecraft and Garry’s Mod I could explore and interact with my own creations; which is a wonderful, godlike experience.

Then I found LittleBigPlanet, a game that gave a limited range of tools that, if you knew your stuff, could create almost anything. The game is primarily a platformer, but I have seen people create shooters, RPGs, mini games, full length movies, anything and everything you can set your mind to, if you know how to make it.

How the programming in LittleBigPlanet works is a lot like Scratch; how you place and hook up modules to activate things. It is as complex as you make it. If I want to make it so that when the player grabs a button it turns on a light, I place an object called a “grab sensor,” and wire it up to a light.

I can make the same concept more complex too. Like if I want it to be that only certain characters can grab the button, and make the light turn on permanently, I can add a tag sensor and hook that and the grab sensor up to an AND gate, and hook that up to a counter set to 1, so when a certain player with a tag grabs the button, both conditions are met so the AND gate sends out a signal, activating the counter so it is at 1/1 and permanently sends out a signal to the light.

I have used this system to create some pretty complex stuff, like a character stealth system, movement speed of characters, etc.

So, if any of this sounds interesting to you, or if you would like to learn more about programming, you should check out Mr. Peterson’s elective class.

Entertainment, Movies/TV/Theaters

La La Land review

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If you have a love for musicals or anything romantic then La La Land is the perfect movie for you. This movie starts out with the two main characters, Mia and Sebastian, who meet on a rather rude note, which gives their relationship a bad start. Even though these two seem to barely have anything in common, they both are struggling creative types that are trying to find their way in life, there’s a spark that they both feel, pushing aside the two bad encounters that they had, which only leads to them to start a love filled relationship that makes everyone’s heart swell.

This film will make you feel all sorts of emotions from sad to happy to disappointed all in a matter of seconds. This Oscar nominee is a brilliant film that has made millions fall in love with it.

La La Land is still showing in theaters, so catch a showtime as soon as you can; you won’t regret it.  

Entertainment, School Life

Dance performance

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On January 19th, 2017, during 3rd hour, Ms. Landreau and Ms. Berger’s dance classes, hosted a dance show. The dance show had all types of dances including: tap, rhythmic, group, and solo dances. The dancers used songs that related to their emotional being; from the way someone looks at their body to their sexual orientation. The dances were full of emotion and spirit each one having its own meaning.

The dance performance used a wide variety of songs. There was a dance for a song in Spanish and a dance with no song at all (to focus more on the expression and body language rather than the rhythm).

Most of the solo dances were based on oneself. The feeling of being lonely or lost, not liking how you are physically, and having feelings others may say are “unnatural” or “not normal” were a few of the topics the dance class decided to focus on.

At the end of the show there was one last dance performed by the IB class. They performed the dance using the song “Where is the love?” by the Black Eyed Peas. Everyone dancing had on a tie, but each tie consisted of a different color representing differences in society as they danced as a whole. The dance had amazing choreography that forced the dancers to rely on each other, emphasizing the importance of teamwork.

The dance performance is different from last year’s with new meaning and choreography. As the diverse choreography and music came together so did the performance. It was an amazing experience to watch, and everyone did a great job as individuals and as a whole.

Editorials/Student Voice, Entertainment

The social commentary of Star Trek

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A month back I was exceptionally bored of my usual routine, of playing video games. Much like the old, tired cliche of how a woman can look into a full closet and have nothing to wear, I had nothing to play. So I went on something I don’t normally go on – Netlfix.

Now, unlike most people, I don’t like Netflix. Or more specifically, I don’t like a lot of shows. I find them dull, boring, or uninteresting. A few of the shows I did like were The Walking Dead, The X-Files, Doctor Who – dystopian or dark shows with airs of mystery. I also like funny things, like W/Bob and David, a very funny but short series.

My most recent interest was shown to me by my mom, like The X-Files beforehand: Star Trek. Specifically, Star Trek The Next Generation.

Now, I want you to know that I don’t plan on dressing up like aliens or whatever, speaking in made up languages…but what I liked about the show is how they blended social commentary into some of the episodes.

For example, one episode deals with the Enterprise hosting two factions very hostile only to each other. I saw parallels between the Soviet Union and U.S., and the Enterprise the U.N. At what point is it acceptable to interfere with the relations of two nations? At what point must you become the peacekeeper? These questions were asked in the episode, and were answered with the Enterprise’s Prime Directive – never interfere. And because of this, some delegates died, much like how people died in Proxy Wars like the Vietnam War.

Another episode is one where they find a planet where women hold all the power, and men are sexuallized and given jobs like secretaries and prostitutes. In the 24th century, humanity is truly equal, and the crew of the Enterprise find this display just as disturbing as the misogynistic past of the U.S. Is it justifiable to put men in this position just like women had been in the past? Is oppositely tilted balances true justice, or just another side of the coin?

Then another episode deals with a society where committing a crime in an area chosen randomly is punished with death. This creates a society full of pleasure and fun, with no crime or chaos at all, with death as the only punishment. Is killing criminals an effective deterrent to stop crime?

I have so far watched about three seasons, and find it fascinating to see the inspirations of some episodes in history and today.

Entertainment

Shawn Mendes tour

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18 year old singer/songwriter Shawn Mendes is one of the biggest singers today as he has had two of his singles reached the Top 20 on Billboard’s Top 100 and Radio Charts.

Shawn got his start after posting a 6 second video on the app, “Vine,” of him singing an acoustic version of Justin Beibers “As Long As You Love Me” on July of 2012. Overnight he got over 100,00 likes and his follower count kept increasing. His fan base grew quickly over a course of a couple of months as he was on Vine, YouTube and Twitter.

When he began posting videos on YouTube, he posted himself doing covers and also posted videos teaching people how to play the guitar. According to an interview he did with The Telegraph UK he claims that, “If you look on YouTube and see some of my first covers you will hear that I did not sound good.” Regardless, he continued to post covers and improve his singing. Now, according to cheat sheet.com, he has over 3.5 million followers on Vine, 2.4 million on Twitter, over a million ‘likes’ on Facebook, and over a million subscribers on YouTube.

Shawn signed with Island Records in June of 2014. He released a 4 song EP, The Shawn Mendes EP which reached No. 1 on iTunes in 37 minutes. He then released his first album, Handwritten on April 14th, 2015, which later on reached No. 1 on Billboard’s 200 chart.

After releasing his sophomore album, Illuminate he has announced his first ever headlining arena world tour for the spring-summer of 2017! According to the website z90.com, his tour will start on April 27th, in the U.K, and will end on August 23rd, in Boston, MA with many more dates yet to be announced in North America and globally.

His newest album, Illuminate, includes his latest hit single “Treat You Better” which has reached the top 10 on both of Billboard’s Hot 100 and Radio Songs chart. Again, according to z90.com, this is Shawn’s second top 10 single on the Hot 100 after “Stitches” reached #4 last year.

Shawn will be in St. Paul, at the Xcel Energy Center on August 6th. If you want to buy tickets, or just get more information about the tour, you can go to, http://shawmendesofficial.com/tour.

If you want to keep up with him, you can follow him on these social media sites:

Twitter – @ShawnMendes

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/user/qzMendShawqz

Facebook – ShawnMendesOfficial

Moxie: @GoMoxieMusic