Category Archives: Tech/Games

Editorials/Student Voice, News, Tech/Games, World

Vault 7

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Spectacular Mountain

In the midst of Paul Ryan’s failure to pass his healthcare bill, and other dramatic political news, a much more interesting story has probably been overlooked. This is of course the Vault 7 leaks, a series of around 8,000 documents that record some of the CIA’s methods of spying and tracking information. The person who leaked this information remains unknown, and the CIA refuses to comment, besides vague remarks.

The leaks first came to light on the website Wikileaks, the controversial platform run by Julian Assange, who has previously been accused of messing with the US elections. Along with the 8,000 documents, was a synopsis of the whole situation, along with a promise to release more similar documents in the future (none have yet arrived), and early access for reporters who did high quality reporting on the leaks.

Some of the more well known leaks do seem to be a major threat on privacy. For example, Weeping Angel, probably the most widely reported virus, allowed the CIA to access certain models of Samsung TVs, allowing them to be used as cameras and microphones to monitor the room the TV was in. This program does still appear to be in the relatively early stages (so far, it has only been delivered via flash drive, and can be removed by unplugging the TV), but is still probably one of the more scary programs that leaked.

In addition to Weeping Angel, there are a multitude of other programs, largely aimed at the Windows operating system and Apple iPhones (the first because of how common it is and the later because it is used by political elites the CIA wants to hack). Overall, the leaks are an astonishing look at the capabilities our intelligence agencies, or at least one of them.

News, Tech/Games, World

Artificial intelligence

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AI, or Artifical Intelligence, is intelligence that is exhibited by machines. Recently, artificial intelligence has taken over many news cycles as we see it being used to solve many problems. According to Wired.com, AI research is defined as the study of any machine that takes information from its environment and uses that information to solve a goal or be better for its task.

Artificial intelligence has been around since at least the early 1960’s. Why are we only hearing about it now then? The main reason is that it has only recently been useful to the common man. Before we look at how AI works, let’s define some of the terms.

When discussing AI a common term you will hear is “Machine Learning.” Machine learning is basically what it sounds like; a machine learning. However, it can get very complex very fast. The main idea behind machine learning is that the machine creates its own prediction engine and is able to accurately predict the outcome of an input over time. For this prediction engine to be good, however, humans have to train it. There are many ways to do this, but the most common way is for the algorithm to be given a set of inputs, with known outputs, and then given some inputs, with unknown outputs. After predicting the output of those inputs, it is then given the actual output and learns from that.

There are many ways that we can apply this. It also has importance on many different levels. The ability for machines to solve problems through logical deduction along with being able to display knowledge about their environment is important because it shows that AI is able to have the same reasoning that we see in young children. It also has importance due to the fact that AI will advance automation along with replacing jobs.

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.

Advice/How To, Tech/Games

How to get off your phone

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image taken from: http://primility.com/phone-game/

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.

School Life, Tech/Games

iPad handout

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This week was iPad handout week where students got their iPads during their Social Studies class. Since the district is controlling the iPads this year, some things were changed.

If a student wanted their iPad, their parents had to go on Parent Portal and fill out the form (iUpdate) online. Last year, students were given printed forms to sign which made things easier for those who had no access to Internet.

There were a few complaints about going on Parent Portal. One thing, is that people say the form was hard to find. At max, it took them about 10 minutes to find the form. Another complaint was that the access to Parent Portal was sent in the mail to the person’s residence during the summer. The complaint was that some people didn’t keep their mailing, or that the parents didn’t know they were supposed to keep it for future use.

For those students who didn’t get their iPads, there was a mailing sent to everyone about the iPad makeup day. Students would get another chance to get their iPad once their parents filled out the iUpdate form.

This year’s iPad handout went by surprisingly fast. Hopefully, everyone uses their iPads appropriately.

Clubs and Activities, Tech/Games

Team 2823: The Automations

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Last year our very own Highland Park High robotics team, 2823, made it to the championships in St. Louis, MO. They had many victories and ended up leaving with the title “Most Creative in Minnesota.”

Now it’s a brand new year and the whole team is looking forward to what this new school year brings. I interviewed some of the team members and mentors about what happened last year in St. Louis, what they have been doing this summer, and what is to come for this year on the team.

Photo from Go Fund Me Page

Name/ Grade: 

Moriss: 10th

Qwadir: 11th

Talking About St.Louis

So last year in St.Louis I would say we did a fairly amazing job. How do you think we did and why?

Moriss: We did amazing. They say we were the last team to be undefeated but technically we were undefeated in my opinion.

Qwadir: We attended the FIRST Championships and it was actually pretty spontaneous and ended up going undefeated in qualifications.

What was the best part of being in St. Louis with some of the team for the championships?

Moriss: Interacting with the other teams.

Qwadir: How well we did and how unexpected it was for us to do that well.

Summer!!

What has the team been doing over the summer to raise awareness about the team or robotics in general?

Qwadir: The biggest thing, first off, the better organization. Getting more structured and organized. We have also been attending the Highland Fest and the State Fair.

Whats to expect this year on team 2823

What do you think is to come this year for robotics?

Moriss: I have higher hopes for Duluth (where the State Championship is held) and robotics in general

Qwadir: Steampunk industral aged theme game. From the team a great preformence and going to champs again.

Do we see Duluth as another possibility this year?

Moriss: Yes, I do.

Qwadir: For sure. We are definitely going to Duluth again. We are already securing the funds.

What would you say to someone thinking about joining the team?

Moriss: You should join because we have a lot of opportunities to learn new skills and build more friendships.

Qwadir: Definitly, just come and see what it’s about. We are here every Thursday in the fall. There are a lot of things to do besides just build the robot.

The Go Fund Me Page

Our robotics team has a Go Fund Me page. Definitely go check it out. It supports the team a lot and also gives the team more opportunities for competition and building. The team goal is $10k. The goal of the team is to develop and apply the knowledge of science, math, business, teach leadership, and problem solving. More info can be found on the Go Fund Me page: https://www.gofundme.com/txf7z5qc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tech/Games

iPad tips

heroNow that the entire student population of HPHS has an iPad in their own possession, there are some tips I’d like to highlight about the devices. Here are the top 5 things to know about SPPS iPads:

5) Use it as much as possible. Remember that whenever the red sign isn’t displayed in the classroom, your iPad can be out and in use. It has the capability to replace most of your paper, don’t let the simplicity of a notebook hold you back.

4) Note-taking. Evernote, Bamboo Paper, Pages, Google Docs and Notes all make for an easy and simple lecture. Just turn the iPad where it’s easiest for you to type and then go to town.

3) AirDrop. Use it as a tool, not a distraction. It can easily help you accomplish tasks. If you missed a day of class, have a friend drop you the notes or a teacher AirDrop the assignment that you missed.

2) “They’re watching you….” Teachers can use Casper Focus to see what you are doing, lock your iPad or lock you into a specific app of their choosing. Through Mobile Device Management, the district, with probable cause, can view you browser/download history and where you have been connected to a network. They also scan each iPad every 24 hours to see if you have downloaded one of the banned apps found at bit.ly/notapps.

1) iPads are a privilege, not a right. Use them the wrong way and continue to abuse your privileges and consequences will be handed to you about as quickly as your iPad was given to you. Use it as tool and avoid the game section of the App Store.