Take a minute to recognize the achievements of our students for the 2013-2014
school year!
Spanish Embassy Contest Winners!
Yet more outstanding PHS kids! Out of the whole Washington D.C., VA., and MD. Area, the Spanish Embassy has selected 5 of our students as Spanish Essay contest winners! The contest is open to all high schools and middle schools in the Virginia, Maryland, D.C. area. PHS place in 5 out of the 6 categories for High School this year.
The contest is sponsored by the Centro Español through the Spanish Embassy. The students had to choose a topic related to Spain and write a 400 word essay in Spanish. It could be Spanish history, culture, scientific or technological advancements/achievements, sports, literature, etc.
Hispanics Category:
2nd: Natasha Velasquez (junior) $150 and certificate
3rd Jovanna Aragon (sophomore) $100 and certificate
Non-Hispanics:
1st Rohan Dixit (sophomore) $250 and certificate
2nd Shaher Bano (sophomore) $150 and certificate
3rd Robert Wilburn (sophomore) $100 and certificate
The Harvard Medical and Dental School Announces Winners of the Organ Challenge!
Congratulations to PHS students for placing First in this challenge with their video "Pumping".
The talents of children and teenagers around the world came together to produce beautiful collaborations of science and art. Judges were impressed with the enthusiasm, creativity, and brilliance demonstrated in all of the videos. Choosing winners was no easy task. 40 videos were judged by members of the 2016 medical and dental school classes.
International Recognition to Science, Math, Computer Science Student!
Top Honors Awarded at Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2014 to senior Vinay Sriram. Congratulations to Vinay winning a 4th Grand Award in the Computer Science category. His project was titled "Design and Performance Analysis of Optimization Algorithms for Efficient Cryptographic Processing in Secure Internet Routing Protocol”.
Poolesville Recognized for Dynamic and Engaging Yearbook
Poolesville High School program recognized for dynamic and engaging yearbook.
Jostens announced that Pooleville High School’s yearbook program has been named a 2014 Jostens National Yearbook Program of Excellence. The program recognizes yearbook staffs and advisers who create engaging yearbooks for their school communities.
The Poolesville High School Echo award winning yearbook program is led by seniors Olivia Jackson, Madeline Poss, and Lacey Williams under the direction of Ms. Lauren Fischetti, the Poolesville High School yearbook adviser.
“Words cannot express the pride that I have for my 2013-2014 yearbook staff. I have seen this staff of twenty students grow throughout the year and tirelessly work on the completion of our yearbook, and I cannot think of any other group of that deserves this award. The editors, Olivia, Madeline, and Lacey, have gone above and beyond all expectations and responsibilities to lead their peers to this award. As student leaders, they have demonstrated such passion and perseverance that we value here at Poolesville High School.”
Jostens’ National Yearbook Program of Excellence Awards are presented to the yearbook program for achieving the defined criteria in each of three following categories: creating an inclusive yearbook, generating school engagement, and successfully managing the yearbook creation process.
Poolesville Art on Permanent Exhibit
Paintings and photographs by Poolesvilee High School AP Photo and art students now brightens the walls at MedStar Montgomery Medical Center in Olney. Click HERE to see online photos of our students art! The framed photos will be on display permanently alongside the artist statement:
“Art has the ability to set the mood for a space, to illicit a visceral reaction in the viewer, to uplift and inspire those who pass by. We chose flowers as the main subject of our photographs because of the symbolism they carry cross-culturally as bearers of life, rejuvenation, and healing. Although simple and delicate structures, they bloom through adverse conditions and thrive among the harsh elements of nature. We hope that our flower prints will revitalize the Montgomery Medical center into a place of optimism and light and instill its visitors with hope and inspiration.”
Congressional Art Competition Finalist
Michelle Kim was chosen as a finalist in the annual Congressional Art Competition and will have her black and white framed photograph on display for a year in a district court in Maryland. Congratulations!
PHS Bring Home Ability One Honors Third Year in a Row!
Three PHS teams (comprised of all juniors) qualified for the Top 5 teams in the country for the AbilityOne Design Challenge sponsored by SourceAmerica. All teams where featured on Channel 9's Cool School segment
Best Use of Assistive Technology
Team members: John Hartwell, Jason Luu and Pei-Yi Lin
Project: Die Cast Guide for BISM, Baltimore, MD
The Die Cast Guide was created for employees with vision impairments to manufacture buffer pads. This device converted buffer pad manufacturing, a job previously designated for sighted workers, to a job opening for all employees.
Finalist
Team members: Asma Azam, Meera Krishnmoorthy, Rachel Chang and Navya Nanda
Project: Sealing Device for The Scott Key Center, Frederick, MD
The Sealing Device was created to help employees seal small boxes with clear labels. By eliminating the need to peel and place labels by hand, The Sealing Device increased accuracy of employees already performing the job and opened the job to those not previously able to perform the necessary tasks.
Best Engineering Design
Team members: Brandon Grinkemeyer, Krishna Gajjala and Sreejan Kumar
Project: The Nexus for The Scott Key Center, Frederick, MD
The Nexus was created to give employees a more efficient way to produce O-rings. The Nexus helped to increase the production rate and accuracy of completed O-rings at the Scott Key Center.
Honors earned at the 24th Annual Maryland Junior Science and Humanities Symposium
The Maryland Junior Science & Humanities Symposium (MD JSHS) is a regional competition conducted under the auspices of the National Junior Science & Humanities Symposia Program. The primary aims of MD JSHS are to promote research and experimentation in the sciences, engineering and mathematics at the high school level, and to publicly recognize students for outstanding achievement and effort. Congratulations to the following students:
JSHS Oral Presenters:
1st Place: Vinay Sriram, Poolesville High School
2nd Place: John Mountain, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute
3rd Place: Isobel Anne Hawes, Aberdeen High School
4th Place: Ayush Goyal, Poolesville High School
5th Place: Dhruv Shankar, Poolesville High School
JSHS Poster Presenters:
1st Place: Jerry Zhang, Poolesville High School
2nd Place: Anirudh Gubba, Poolesville High School
PHS students Plan for "The Next Step" and earn a prize too!
Congratulations to 10th grade team members Angela Zhou, Cherry Zou, Grace Jiau, and Sanna Madan. This 10th grade team won third prize in the Internation NASA Space Settlement Contest! submission was.
In their entry, titled The Next Step, they described thier unique design and plans for a hypothetical settlement that would revolve around Mars. In it, they talked about the outer and inner design (a torus), physics and math, energy supply and usage, animals and plants, maintenance of spacecraft, maintenance of passengers, defense, culture and entertainment, staff, emergency plans, water system/purification, technology, and vehicles.
This annual contest, co-sponsored by NASA Ames and the National Space Society (NSS) is for all students up to 12th grade (18 years old) from anywhere in the world.
Forensics Team Winners!
Congratulations to the PHS Forensics Team!
Lauren Gross (12th) – 1st place in MCPS – Informative Speaking
Courtney Steininger (12th) – 2nd place in MCPS – Extemporaneous Speaking
Emily Himmelfarb (12th) - 2nd place in MCPS – Persuasive Speaking (I inadvertently excluded her previously)
Jessica Ting (12th) – 6th place in MCPS – Informative Speaking
The combination of these finalists plus those students who qualified and were later eliminated, enabled us to earn 6th place in MCPS. We am very proud of their hard work.
Computer Contest Winners!
Congratulations to the team from Poolesville High School (10th graders Diwakar Ganesan, Kent Ma, Jonathan Ni), coached by Mark Estep. They placed third in the Innovative Defense Technologies (IDT) annual High School and Collegiate Programming Contest. The competition focused on innovative methods of implementing Automated Software Testing techniques. Several local high school and university teams participated. “The purpose of this type of event is to promote student interest in Automated Software Testing through problem solving, teamwork and innovative technology,” said Thom Garrett, IDT contest chair. This year’s problem focused on designing and coding a very succinct API/Library in Java that could verify inputs and outputs.
Hispanic Heritage Foundation adn ExxonMobil Award
The Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF) and ExxonMobil will honor Poolesville High School Senior André Guzmán with a National Youth Award for the Engineering & Mathematics category along with five other students who were narrowed down from thousands of applicants, to hundreds of regional recipients from 10 markets.
Maryland Coalition for Gifted and Talented Education Essay Contest Winner
Maryland Gifted and Talented students in grades 6-12 were invited to participate in an essay contest titled, “What have gifted education opportunities meant to me?”
Congratulation to first place winner sophomore Jennifer Dunn. Her award will be presented at the Maryland State Department of Education’s Celebrating GT Education Reception at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
Scholastic Art Honors!
Poolesville had a record 9 Gold Key awards in the Northeast Regional Scholastic Art & Writing competition. Our region includes eleven states and is highly competitive. Gold key winners are now eligible for the National competition. We also had 5 Silver Key awards & 5 Honorable Mentions.
Winners (Seniors unless otherwise indicated):
Michelle Kim: Senior Portfolio: Gold Key - Selfie Deprivation (Michelle was 1 of 16 Gold Key Senior Portfolio winners out of the entire Northeast region)
Rachel Watkins: Gold Key (3) - Doryphoros, Cake, & Sprinkles
Gillian Casey (Junior): Gold Key - Scream
Honorable Mention - Enlightenment
Chelsie Pennello: Gold Key - Conundrum
Silver Key - Ruby
Toni Rose San Miguel: Gold Key: Solstice
Honorable Mention - Wrinkle
Julian Tash: Gold Key - Military Boarder on the Lebanese Boarder
Silver Key – Rocky
Wendy Zhou: Gold Key – Wallflower
Katie Truppo: Silver Key (2) - Vacancy & Radiant
Jessie Maloney: Silver Key – Drip
Chris Gaut: Honorable Mention - Fizz
Dylan Blanc (Junior): Honorable Mention - Justice for All
JJ Hase: Honorable Mention - I think I'm Breaking Down
Loci earns Gold Medal and All Columbia Honors
Congratulations are in order for the Loci staff. Loci is a student generated magazine and won a Gold Medal and is the recipient of All Columbia honors from the Scholastic Press Association. The magazine scored 928 out of 1000 points. Some comments from the judges include:
"This staff is obviously not afraid to think outside the box in design and content."
"When a reader goes to the Loci site, he may intend to pause for a little while but he becomes intrigued by the diversified content, the art and design, the complete package is so compelling, that he must view the entire magazine before leaving."
"A good story/poem is one which celebrates language, takes the reader on a short journey and touches the heart or mind or the imagination. Your magazine has succeeded in doing that."
"Add more content; what you have is of such high quality that the reader is definitely left wanting more"
Click HERE to view the Loci
University of Maryland Math Competition Winner!
Congratulations to senior Brendon Lawler who won an Honorable Mention at the The 35th Annual University of Maryland High School Mathematics Competition!
SMCS Class of 2014 Research Symposium
If you walked into Poolesville High School during the week before winter break, you might feel as if you have walked into the National Institutes of Health meeting room or an American Association for the Advancement of Science Conference. (Click HERE to see more!)
Intel Semifinalist!
Congratulations to Vinay Sriram for earning a position as a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search (lntel STS. Vinay's senior project "Quantitative Modeling of Processing Cost and Energy Consumption for Optimization Algorithms in Cryptographically Enhanced Secure Internet Routing Protocol" was one of 300 projects selected from among 1,794 entrants representing 489 high schools in 45 states, the District of Columbia, and seven overseas schools.
Each of the 300 students named a semifinalist in the Intel STS 2014 will receive a $1,000 award for his or her outstanding research. Additionally, to recognize excellence in teaching and school support of individual student research, every school will receive an award of $1,000 for each semifinalist named in the Intel STS 2014. This award is used to further excellence in science, math, and/or engineering education.
Siemens Semifinalists!
Congratulations to Vincent Hsiao and Vinay Sriram for becoming Siemens Semifinalists. Vincent's senior project was titled "Improved Methods of Sampling for Monte Carlo Tree Search" and Vinay's project "Quantitative Modeling of Processing Cost and Energy Consumption for Optimization Algorithms in Cryptographically Enhanced Secure Internet Routing Protocol".
The Siemens Foundation recognized the both students as in the 2013 Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology, the nation’s premier research competition for high school students. A record 2,440 students registered for this year’s competition and a total of 1,599 projects were submitted for consideration. Three hundred thirty-one students were seleceted as semifinalists. The 2013 Siemens Competition generated unprecedented participation, showcasing students’ growing interest in science, math and technology subjects.
Hispanic Heritage Foundation Awards Poolesville Seniors for Engineering and Math Talent!
(L to R): Vicente Lledo, ExxonMobil; Taylor Evans, Middletown High School; and Carolina Zarate and Andre Guzman, Poolesville High School; at the Washington D.C. Hispanic Heritage Youth Awards.
Poolesville High School seniors, Andre Guzman and Carolina Zarate, received a gold award and silver award, respectively, from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation. They were two of 15 award recipients at the Washington D.C. regional Hispanic Heritage Youth Awards ceremony this winter. As the gold medalist in the engineering and mathematics category, sponsored by ExxonMobil, Guzman was awarded a $3,000 scholarship to support his plans to pursue a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. Silver award winner, Zarate received a $2,000 scholarship to pursue a degree in computer science.
The Hispanic Heritage Youth Awards program offers educational grants to Hispanic high school seniors chosen by regional selection committees based on their academic achievement, leadership, community service, category focus and an essay about the important role their heritage played in their success.
Poolesville High School seniors awarded scholarships for engineering and math talent
National Center for Women & Information Technology Winner!
Congratulations to Senior Caroline Zarate! The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) and Bank of America have selected 35 female high school students as winners of the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing,and Caroline is the only winner from the state of Maryland. This is an award that recognizes young women for their outstanding aptitude in computing and technology.
The 35 national winners were selected from among more than 2,300 applicants, representing all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and overseas military bases. The young women will be honored at a Bank of America Technology Stars of the Future Showcase & Awards Ceremony.
Drexel Photography High School Contest Finalists!
Seniors Michelle Kim and Rachel Watkins have had their photography selected to be exhibited in Drexel University's national photo contest. Drexel received over 1350 images from all over the US and only choose 125 images as finalists, whose work will be on exhibit in Philadelphia. Michelle and Rachel are the only high school students with work in the show from the state of Maryland.
Washington School of Photography Montgomery HS Juried Exhibition
Rachel Watkins won 2nd place in the Washington School of Photography Montgomery County High School Juried Exhibition. There were over 300 images on display.
The following students also had their artwork juried into the show:Katie Truppo, Toni Rose San Miguel, Caroline Kraegel, Chris Gaut, Hayley Barner, Anne Mustafa, John Hartwell, Emily Agate, Rosalyn Xu, Wendy Zhou, Ashley Jordan, Julia Jordan, Jessie Maloney, Josh Aurdos, Allie Goldman, and Chase Garrett
Record Number Earn National Merit Commendation!
Student Artwork on Display!
Senior Haley Johnson has had a photograph from her series taken in Uganda selected to be a part of a juried exhibition of amateur and professional photographers. The exhibition will take place at Honfleur Gallery in DC, as a part of FotoDC, an international photography festival.
Her work will be on Display from October 16th through the 25th, 2013
Davidson Fellows - 2013 Fellow Vinay Sriram
Congratulation to Senior Vinay Sriram, Davidson Fellows award winner. Vinay is a scholarship recipient in the Technology Category, with his project: “Quantitative Modeling of Processing Cost and Energy Consumption for Cryptographically Enhanced Secure Internet Routing Protocol”
2013 Loci published and online!
Click HERE to see the 2012-2013 version of the Loci, Poolesville's Literary Magazine.
Poster Contest Winner!
SeniorLisa Shimimoto has won first place for the “Where does your water shed” (Montgomery County level) poster contest and first place within the “Seabirds” division of the National Massachusetts Marine Educators (MME) Marine Art Contest. Congratulations Lisa!