The Kinetic Polar Bears, comprised ofHortonville High School students TrevorCarter, Mitchell Kettner, Sam Murphy,and Max Wilson, took first place in theWisconsin FIRST Tech ChallengeChampionship Tournament that was heldon Saturday, Jan. 30 at the UW MilwaukeeUnion.

The FIRST Tech Challenge is a nation-wide robotics competition for high-schoolaged students designed to build interestin science and technology. There were 17teams from Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan,and Iowa at the competition.

There were seven qualifying matchesrun, in which two alliances of two teams

each square off in a two and-a-half minutematch. After a difficult start in which theHortonville robot was accidentally leftunpowered, The Polar Bears slowlyworked their way back to the first seedposition by winning their remaining sixqualifying matches.

After qualifiers, the top four seededteams picked an alliance partner and pro-ceeded to a double elimination semi-finalround. The Polar Bears chose the RisingTide team from Bloomfield, Mich. as analliance partner, and won their semi-finalrounds decisively.

In the first round of the double elimi-nation final, the Polar Bears narrowly lost

their first game. They then hung on by athin thread by tying their next round, put-ting some of their supporters in medicaljeopardy of heart attack. They won thethird round decisively to put the finalsinto an overtime tie-breaker match. ThePolar Bears then won the last match totake first place in the tournament. One ofthe semi-final rounds can be viewed onYoutube athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuxDzaaaUzc

In addition to the competition, thereare several judged awards, including theInspire Award, the Innovate Award, theDesign Award, the Connect Award, the

Motivate Award, and the Think Award.The Polar Bears were nominated for theInspire Award, and they won the DesignAward. This is the second consecutiveyear in which they won the Design Award,given for recognition of design elementsof the robot that are both functional andaesthetic.

By winning this regional tournament,The Kinetic Polar Bears have qualified tocompete in the National FTCTournament in Atlanta, Georgia April 14-17. The boys all plan on attending and areexcited to represent Hortonville andWisconsin in this high profile nationalevent!

Kinetic Polar Bears advance to national competition

Scheduling with Youth OptionsBy Dan OhlmannHHS Associate Principal

When a program like Wisconsin’s YouthOptions opens the door to greater learningopportunities for motivated high school stu-dents considering a technical career, wish-ing to begin college early, or preparing toenter the workforce immediately after highschool graduation, it is difficult to find itsdownside. Maybe there isn’t one — at leastnot one that would keep an energized stu-dent from participating.

Hortonville High School Youth Optionsstudents may have concerns with the pro-gram, but they are not concerns of access,content, or quality, they are concerns of pub-lic perception, program/class availability,scheduling difficulties, weather, and dis-tance to class.

Now, some of the more popular collegeand technical college classes are offered onthe high school campus with an articulatedcurriculum for which a high school studentcan earn either a trans-scripted credit —credit both at the high school and credit atthe technical college or university — oradvanced standing.

Advanced standing is the granting ofcredit in an associate degree or technicaldiploma program for knowledge and skillsthat directly relate to the program curricu-lum.

With the economy in a trough, down-sized workers are re-educating themselvesin order to keep their jobs or make them-

selves more marketable. Technical collegesin particular are seeing a 14.9 percentincrease in the number of enrollments thisyear.

When programs and classes fill, YouthOptions students are put on a waiting list.“Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA), class-es (at FVTC) are full,” said Hortonville HighSchool registrar Carol Kaddatz. “Whenclasses fill on one campus the students maybe able to get the class but they may have totake it on an odd night in a town 40 milesaway — that is a concern.”

Another concern with Youth Optionsclasses taken by Hortonville High Schoolstudents, is the distance they have to travelto get from the high school campus to FVTCor UW-FV.

If a college class is scheduled for mid-day, students may have to miss three peri-ods of high school to attend one class at oneof the colleges. Students need to have atleast a half hour to 40 minutes of travel timeeach way if they are only taking one YouthOptions college class. That is why many stu-dents try to arrange their schedules so theyare away from the high school campus mostof the morning or most of the afternoon.

“The issue of student safety is para-mount to parents and high school personnelalike,” said Joel Newcomb, HHS counselorand school to work coordinator. “For thatreason, every effort is made to try to accom-modate a schedule which allows students tocomplete their programs in a manner whichlimits their travel time.”

Library helpers

Photo by Connie FrassettoDue to budget cuts, the work load has increased in the district libraries. Sev-en students have been helping out in the High School Library by shelvingbooks, straightening books on the shelves and maintaining the periodicalsroom. They work from 15 to 45 minutes per day during their study hall andearn service hours at the same time. They often stumble upon books that theyfind interesting and read more. “It’s made the transition go very well — I don’tthink I could do it without their wonderful help,” said Librarian Connie Frasset-to.

A Día de los Muertos openhouse was held at HortonvilleHigh school on Oct. 28, hosted byfifth year Spanish students, incollaboration with the SpanishHonor Society and EnglishLanguage Learners (ELL). Thestudents were under the leader-ship of Janet Rowe, DistrictCoordinator of WorldLanguages, and Kris Zullner,District ELL Coordinator.

Some people misunderstandDay of the Dead because of itsname or because of the itemsassociated with the holiday.

Day of the Dead, el Día de losMuertos in Spanish, is notMexico’s Halloween nor is it asad time. This three day holidayprovides a special time to thinkof happy memories and reflectupon the lives of family andfriends who have died. InMexico, it is one of the biggestholidays of the year.

To learn about this veryimportant holiday, students

teamed up to design variousauthentic displays called “ofren-das,” which reflected globalissues such as child soldiers, vic-tims of political oppression andpoverty, or famous Hispanicslike Mexican revolutionaryEmiliano Zapata, and PuertoRican singer Celia Cruz.

The high school studentsthen shared their learning withover 600 visitors at the openhouse including students fromNew London and Shiocton highschools, HASD staff and stu-dents from all five districtschools, as well as communitymembers. Students explainedtheir ofrendas in Spanish andEnglish to the visitors, depend-ing on their audience. One highschool Spanish student stated,“It was great to put our learningto use outside the classroom, toshare what we know.”

The high school students alsoprovided typical refreshmentsserved during the holiday. Many

students were able to try a newfood and beverage for their firsttime.

“Don’t be afraid to try newfoods from other culturesbecause you might like it. Pan demuerto was good!” commentedone eighth grade student.

District fifth grade studentsparticipated by studying the Dayof the Dead in Spanish class andmaking related projects in artclass which were then displayedduring the open house.Beginning Spanish students inboth the middle and high schools

made candy skulls and flowers todecorate the open house.Another highlight was a colorfulpaper-making station, hosted byHHS art teacher Gail Draeger,where she taught about the artof Mexican paper cutting (papelpicado).

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Day of the Dead, morethan tricks and treats

Photo contributed by Janet RoweOn Oct. 28, Hortonville High CAPP Spanish and Spanish Honor Society Students hosted a communityopen house for the Mexican Holiday, Day of the Dead. Spanish Language and English Language Learn-er students collaborated on the project which was attended by elementary, middle and high schoolstudents from HASD, as well as New London and Shiocton schools.