Pond Hockey Tournament raises $50,035 for Jablonski February 1, 2012 at 7:58 pm
Students and teachers swap outfits for Catholic Schools Week February 1, 2012 at 7:58 am
Catholic Schools Week kicks off with pjs and honors February 1, 2012 at 7:58 am
One Act play takes second place at sub-sections February 1, 2012 at 7:57 am
Youth In Goverment members lobby for government changes February 1, 2012 at 7:56 am
American Literature teacher Ms. Anne Marie Dominguez teaches The Great Gatsby to her students in the newly developed class, American Studies, alongside U.S. History teacher Ms. Megan Kern. (Chris Bell)
February 3, 2012
Nicole Sarquis, Staff Writer
History teachers tend to ramble off unrelatable facts about flappers, bootlegging, and the ease of life in the “Roaring 20s” during a typical U.S. History class, leaving their students with no real understanding of the subject. At the same time, English teachers’ enthusiasm over F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” can only be understood... Continue Reading
February 6, 2012
Matt Muenzberg, Sports Editor
“We need our Kyle Rau,” said boys’ hockey head coach Mr. Ken Pauly, referencing the former Eden Prairie Eagle who not only led the team in scoring on their way to last year’s state championship, but also consistently showed up when his team needed a goal. BSM’s Kyle Rau is junior forward Grant Besse, who has been on a roll lately, averaging over 2.8 goals a game in his last seven games. He twice found the back of the net and added an assist in a 4-3 win over section rival Wayzata on Monday, Feb. 6. With section seeding on the line, there was a playoff-like atmosphere at the packed Plymouth Ice Center. “I loved it,” said Besse. “I thrive on that stuff.” Head-to-head match-ups... Continue Reading
Junior Shannon Galvin rehearses for the upcoming Les Miserables performance wither her fellow cast members. (Giulia Imholte)
January 27, 2012
Emily Kline, Staff Writer
Blue Water Theatre Company, one of the Twin Cities’ top performing arts groups for youth, is taking on “Les Misérables,” one of musical theatre’s most famous works, for their winter production. Juniors Rachel Hogen and Shannon Galvin, along with sophomore Rachel Wallace, joined the cast in late November and are currently in rehearsals for the... Continue Reading
February 1, 2012
Nick Hillson, Staff Writer
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a bill running through Congress in an attempt to curb the illegal uploading and downloading of copyrighted information and programs. Unfortunately, due to extremely vague wording and unclear definitions, the censorship proposed could extend to websites such as Facebook, various e-mails, and any other free forum. Not only is SOPA ineffective for all but the technologically impaired, but it violates our rights and benefits only a small handful of elites. SOPA works by requiring websites and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to search through sent information and to censor any infringing material. Not only does this ignore the privacy guaranteed in the Constitution... Continue Reading
The Mock Trial team had a succesful season at several competitions due to immense practice and help from professional lawyers. (Photo courtesy of Jim Vogl)
February 3, 2012
Mallory Hoch, Staff Writer
Beginning in October, the Mock Trial team has practiced every night from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in room 121 in preparation for upcoming competitions. Coming to a close on January 31st, the season ended on a strong note, making it to subsections before loosing their last competition. The season commenced with general practices to help initiate new members.... Continue Reading
| Sport | Date | Opponent | Result | W/L | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Girls Hockey | Sat, Feb 04 | Totino-Grace | 9-0 | Read Story | W |
| Boys Hockey | Sat, Feb 04 | Spring Lake Park | 15-0 | W | |
| Wrestling | Sat, Feb 04 | TBA | 9th Place | ||
| Girls Basketball | Fri, Feb 03 | Spring Lake Park | 57-39 | W | |
| Boys Basketball | Fri, Feb 03 | Spring Lake Park | 67-65 | Read Story | W |
| Girls Hockey | Thu, Feb 02 | Spring Lake Park | 6-0 | Read Story | W |
| Wrestling | Thu, Feb 02 | Dassel-Cokato | 21-58 | L | |
| Girls Basketball | Tue, Jan 31 | Minneapolis Southwest | 70-38 | W | |
| Boys Hockey | Tue, Jan 31 | Jefferson | 7-1 | Read Story | W |
| Girls Hockey | Sat, Jan 28 | Hill-Murray | 1-3 | Read Story | L |
| Boys Basketball | Sat, Jan 28 | North Branch | 82-21 | Read Story | W |
| Girls Basketball | Sat, Jan 28 | North Branch | 66-40 | Read Story | W |
| Sport | Date | Time | Opponent | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boys Hockey | Wed, Feb 08 | 7:30 | Shattuck-St. Mary's | Shattuck-St. Mary's |
| Girls Basketball | Fri, Feb 10 | 7:15 | St. Louis Park | St. Louis Park |
| Wrestling | Fri, Feb 10 | 6:00 | Chisago Lakes | Home |
| Boys Hockey | Sat, Feb 11 | 2:30 | Totino-Grace | St. Louis Park |
| Dance Team | Sat, Feb 11 | 1:00 | Sections | Austin |
| Boys Hockey | Tue, Feb 14 | 7:00 | Chisago Lakes | Chisago Lakes |
| Girls Basketball | Tue, Feb 14 | 7:15 | Columbia Heights | Home |
| Girls Basketball | Thu, Feb 16 | 7:15 | Waconia | Home |
| Girls Basketball | Fri, Feb 17 | 7:15 | Irondale | Home |
| Boys Hockey | Sat, Feb 18 | 2:30 | Stillwater | St. Louis Park |
| Wrestling | Sat, Feb 18 | 8:00 | Section Opponents | Totino-Grace |
| Girls Basketball | Tue, Feb 21 | 7:15 | St. Francis | Home |
The fourteen BSM graduates part of the 2007-2008 ACS team are pictured with their robot PITA at the RoboCup competition held in Suzhou China over the summer.
Griffin Muckley
September 25, 2008
Filed under News
While many high school students are content building simple skate ramps in their garage, or playing basic computer games, a group of BSM’s 14 finest Advanced Competitive Science (ACS) students travelled to China over the summer, and used their knowledge of engineering and computer programming to uphold BSM’s tradition or competing in the top level of RoboCup: a college level international robotics tournament.
Suzhou – China
The group of graduated seniors left July 11 along with ACS coordinator and teacher Mr. Jump and arrived in the city of Suzhou, approximately one hour out of Shanghai. For twelve days the team competed at the International Convention Center in Suzhou in a robotics competition called RoboCup.
There are multiple leagues in RoboCup, all of which have different challenges teams must complete. The BSM team competed in the RoboCupRescue Robot league. The challenge of this specific league is to create a robot that will enter a simulated rescue site approximately the size of a small house. The robot must then maneuver through designated obstacles, such as walls, stairs, and rubble, and find mannequins that give off signs of life, such as movement and heat. The purpose of the challenge is to map out the area, designate where victims are, and return the information that has been collected so that a rescue could theoretically be performed.
If someone were to merely look at the final scores, it may appear that the team did not do very well. “That is relative: comparatively [we did] not [do] that well…We blew out three motors preventing us from moving on to the next round.” In fact, the BSM team ended up in last place of the eighteen competitors.
These results, however, don’t necessarily tell of BSM’s actual success, because as Mr. Jump said the question is relative: “The fact that we are a high school team competing in this competition is outstanding…here are some of the top world development leaders, and we sit there as a high school team and they ask us questions…We come up with significant platforms that other people want to copy,” said Jump.
Indeed, BSM competes at the senior level, even though the team could qualify for the junior division, which is made up of high school students and college freshmen. Instead, BSM takes on the top engineering colleges from Germany, China, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, and Iran. Not only is the team the only high school team, but “we are the only qualified U.S. team for the senior division of RoboCup,” said Mr. Jump.
Unfortunately, there were a number of issues that plagued the team from the moment they arrived: “There were so many unforeseen small technical errors when we arrived that we spent a lot of our time just concentrating on getting one thing done at a time. As a result, we never got to test drive the robot,” said team member Jack O’Reilly. The team was able to fix many of the smaller errors, but once the engines blew out, they were done.
Evolution of RoboCup and ACS
RoboCup started as a college level competition in 1997 with one challenge, RoboCupSoccer, a simulated robotic soccer matched that pinned robot-players against each other. As the tournament developed, more challenges were added, such as the rescue simulation RoboCupRescue, and the lower level league for high schools and young college organizations, RoboCupJunior.
The new leagues, such as RoboCupRescue, gave the highly advanced technologies entered in the tournament a real world application. Many of the highly advanced robotics showcased in RoboCup are looked at by companies for their applicability to real life rescue situations. Said Jack O’Reilly, “There were universities and for-profit businesses from all over the world there.”
BSM has been competing in RoboCup tournaments since 2004 and has done notably well, finishing tenth in the world only three years ago. In fact, because of BSM’s outstanding results in past tournaments, all that is required of BSM is a technical research paper to qualify for the world tournament; BSM no longer is required to win a qualifying preliminary tournament. “We’re one of the automatics,” said Mr. Jump.
Preparing a New Team
This year the ACS classes are already working to prepare for this year’s tournament, which will be held in Grauze Austria next Summer. “They will be working on new systems to deploy on the robot,” said Mr. Jump.
Mr. Jump is continually looking for ways to advance the BSM engineering program further than any of its competitors. He is doing this by hopefully speeding up the progression of the ACS classes: “it’s a multiple year project…we hope to puss [level III] into II, and put more software developing into level I,” said Mr. Jump.
By speeding up the curriculum, the teams will hopefully have more time to prepare, which was one issue for the students this summer. “It was too bad that we didn’t have enough preparations time,” said O’Reilly.
The ACS program also hopes to gain more notoriety by entering into lower level tournaments as well. Said Mr. Jump, “We are taking ACS I and II and putting them in RoboCup Jr.,” where they will be competing with teams ranging from high school students to college freshmen.
The team has high hopes for the near future. “We expect to win a championship in three years,” said Mr. Jump.
Comments
The Knight Errant intends for this area to be used to foster healthy, thought-provoking discussion. Comments are expected to adhere to our standards and to be respectful and constructive. As such, we do not permit the use of profanity, foul language, personal attacks, or the use of language that might be interpreted as libelous. Comments are reviewed and must be approved by a moderator to ensure that they meet these standards. The Knight Errant does not allow anonymous comments, and the Knight Errant requires a valid email address. The email address will not be displayed but will be used to confirm your comments.
Leave a Reply