by Saber Slate | Mar 20, 2020 | Archive
The Saber Slate is hosting a Quarantine Video Contest! What you need to do is submit a video of something that you’ve learned/a game you’ve come up with/something weird but cool /something to pass the time/basically anything fun! The videos will be posted on the Saber Slate to give each other fun ideas of what we can do while being quarantined and to continue to stay connected as a community. Plus, there will be prizes for the best three videos submitted! It wouldn’t be a contest without prizes. See the information below for more details.
GOAL:
Inspire each other with fun and interesting things to do while being quarantined, to continue to create a sense of community (even when we’re not all in the same building), and to inspire some friendly competition.
TIMELINE:
The competition will last from Monday, March 23 at 8:00 am through Sunday, April 5 at 11:59 pm. But the Saber Slate is accepting responses right now if you want to get yours done early.
STUDENT PRIZES:
For the student and their Gold Block:
1st Place = Jimmy Johns Sandwich/Pizza Party
2nd Place = Pizza Party/Jimmy Johns Sandwich
3rd Place = Donuts
Winners will be determined by Mr. Hein, Mr. Nettesheim, and the editors of the Saber Slate. The aforementioned people are not eligible to win prizes.
Videos will be judged based on creativity, engagement, effort, and Saber Pride.
FACULTY WINNER:
There will be a student vote to determine the best video uploaded from a staff member!
ELIGIBILITY:
- Must be a current FHS student
- One submission per student
- Videos must be under 3 minutes in length
- Videos must be school appropriate
- Only school appropriate videos will be considered for the competition. Anything that is deemed not school appropriate will be disqualified.
- Videos should be done individually
- Thus the point of quarantine
- Videos containing more than 1 student (except for the case of siblings) will be disqualified
SUBMISSIONS:
Submissions must be received via this form. Videos can be uploaded on YouTube or Google Drive or any other website. Copy and paste the link into the form. Videos must be public or accessible by link. If the video cannot be viewed by the judges, the submission will be disqualified.
VIDEO IDEAS:
- A fun game you came up with
- New dance
- A time-lapse of an art project
- Playing instrument
- Singing
- A trick shot
- Cooking something
- A cool trick you can do
- A cool trick you taught your dog to do
- A Rube Goldberg machine
- Something learned in a foreign language
- A historical reenactment
- A slam poem you wrote
- A comedic play
- Basically anything fun or interesting
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to email Delaney Hayes, Amenah Syed, or Mr. Nettesheim.
Good luck and have fun!
by Saber Slate | Mar 16, 2020 | Athletics & Activities, Community, News, School
On Thursday the 5th, FHS hosted its annual Culture Fest – in the past, it was known as Mini-Juneteenth Day. This time, we celebrated just about every culture there is. Around the main commons you could find different varieties of food and cultural traditions. I had the opportunity of volunteering to man the Japanese booth. With the help of a few of my fellow Japanese classmates we were able to set up a pretty decent booth towards the front of the room. We brought in traditional Japanese onigiri, which are rice balls with soy sauce and some seasonings. Sometimes they contain what are pickled plums inside, but these ones did not. Visitors could have the option of wrapping nori seaweed around the onigiri, but they weren’t required to. Or, they could just have the seaweed on its own. Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to taste test these delicacies because they were for visitors of our stand.
We also brought traditional Japanese clothes from class, which were the kimono and yukata. We didn’t wear the kimono because there were too many different pieces and there is a certain traditional way of putting on these clothes. Kids could come by as well and play with the kendama, which is the Japanese version of the cup game. Basically, a ball is attached to the wooden part by a string, and you need to flick the ball to get it on a small point. It’s more frustrating than it sounds, trust me. But it was a good way to keep people entertained.
I had the opportunity to ask a fellow volunteer and friend, Nadia Estrada(who was working on the Bolivia stand near me with her sister Jiana) about her experiences and thoughts about the Culture Fest. Bolded are my questions, and italicized are Nadia’s responses.
Overall what did you think of the event?
I was really surprised by how many people attended and was really pleased with how legitimately interested they seemed about all the cultures presented. It was really cool to see everyone come together to create an event that brought students and the community together.
Is there anything you’d want different for next year?
I would want to somehow make the passports for the kids so that they actually had to listen to the presentations instead of just a stamp and go, because then they aren’t learning anything.
What was your favorite part?
My favorite part was the dancing performances, Senor Mac’s friend’s guitar performance, and the fashion show was groovy too.
Can you describe some of the things you did volunteering?
So I helped in the planning and organization of the event (I mean so did almost everyone else) by giving my input on possible ideas and how we would run them and possible solutions to issues we would encounter. I also ran the Bolivia booth with Jiana where we had a poster board that had a bunch of information about Bolivia (the indigenous culture, music, etc) and brought artifacts that we had from our relatives in Bolivia. We also brought some Bolivian food – alfajores (like a shortbread cookie with caramel cream in the middle (cajeta)) and cocads (a coconut candy with sweetened condensed milk).
Any thing else you would like to add?
It was really nice to see all the hard work that everyone, especially Mrs. DeClark, put into the event and how much it paid off for everything there because of how well it turned out. I was super impressed and I hope we can make it even better for next year.
I’d like to thank all of the volunteers who came along with me and everyone who came to attend our Culture Fest! Also a big thanks for Nadia once again for the interview! I’m looking forward to coming next year as an alumni.
by Saber Slate | Feb 11, 2020 | Opinion & Reviews
One of the websites that has been a staple of our childhood and our generation is Coolmath-games.com. To this day, me and many of my friends pass the time on this website if we have our work done and are bored. Today, I will be ranking my personal Top 5 Coolmath-games based on how memorable they are to me and how fun they are.
- IQ Ball
IQ Ball is a fun platformer where you play as a little purple creature who moves around by swinging like Spider-Man, and who doesn’t like Spider-Man? Now you can get to live your dreams within IQ Ball, where your goal is to grab the swirly target to beat the level. This game is memorable to me because I played this throughout the third and fourth grade trying to beat this game and seeing what my “IQ” was compared to my friends.
- Run 3
Run 3 is the third installment in the Run series. This time, there’s more levels, worlds, and characters, and even cutscenes. Although not as classic as the first two Run games, it’s still very fun to play during a slow day and find the different paths you can take. This game is memorable to me because of the memories I associate with the other two Run games- they took everything great and dialed it up in this installment.
- Parking Mania
Parking Mania is probably one of the first Coolmath Games I’ve ever played, and it will probably be the last one I play. The goal of this game is based on the title- your goal is to park the red car into a parking space. Pretty straightforward, if you ask me. But as you go on, you will have to execute expert-level parking maneuvers (including parallel parking) to get perfectly aligned into the parking spot. However, you must be careful- one hit to your car and you will have to start all the way at the beginning. This game is memorable to me because it’s probably the single reason why I passed my parking test.
- Papa’s Pizzeria series
Papa has many different games in the series, from a pizzeria to a sushiria. The goal of these games is straightforward- you need to manage your business, taking orders from people while simultaneously cooking the food, being a time management game. When I first played this game it was very overwhelming for my little mind to do all this stuff at once but as time went on I became better and better at this, forming better time management skills.
- Idle Breakout
I have a lot of favorites on Coolmath, but this one is probably my favorite newer one. The goal of the game is similar to Breakout, where your goal is to break as many bricks as possible to move to the next level. However, it’s called idle Breakout because you can just let the game run in the background while the balls earn money for you by breaking bricks. You can buy many different kinds of balls, each with different abilities. There’s also power-ups that are unlocked over time. As the game goes on, the bricks become harder and harder to break, and black colored bricks appear, which you can only break once you break all of the other bricks. There are also bosses you can fight to own bonus points for unlocking more skills. For a game with such a simple premise, it’s actually very complex as you progress from level to level. For example, I’ve been running the game in the background with the most powerful balls and I’ve made it to almost level 800 (the levels repeat themselves with more powerful bricks) and made millions of in-game dollars. It’s addicting to see each brick be whittled down each level. You also need to manage your money as well to get the right kind of upgrades for what you need. There are definitely better games to pick as my favorite, but I couldn’t think of anything else because this is one of the only ones I play anymore.
So, I hope you enjoyed my Top 5 Coolmath Game picks. Leave a comment down below if you think I missed a game that deserved a pick, or some honorable mentions you would like to see added to the article. Thank you for taking the time to read!
by Saber Slate | Jan 23, 2020 | Athletics & Activities, Opinion & Reviews
Friday the 10th was the third annual Voices of FHS, an event where students go up on stage in the auditorium to talk about certain topics. These students have months of preparation for the event. In my opinion this event was very inspiring. To see these students go up on stage and publicly speak was brave in and of itself. Some of the things they talked about were important contemporary topics that they shared their opinion on and what we as a society should do about these problems. I interviewed the host, Angie Carchesi, about the event. My questions are in bold.
What is The Voices of FHS, and why was it first created?
“The Voices of FHS is an event where students give TED Talk style speeches in the Saber Center,” Angie says. “It was first created three years ago by Priyanka Iyer and Katie Harris in order to give students the opportunity to speak about their ideas and passions.”
What inspired you to host this event?
“I was inspired to host this event because I spoke at it my sophomore year and wanted to have a bigger role in it, so I decided to take it over!” she states.
What does this event mean for students?
“This event gives students a platform to talk about what matters to them and the audience the opportunity to learn more about others’ experiences,” Angie says.
How long does it take to prepare for the event?
“We began to prepare for the event in November,” she tells me. “We had weekly meetings where we worked on speech writing and speaking techniques.”
How can one join the Voices of FHS?
“One can join the Voices of FHS by contacting Mrs. Tindall or the student who is in charge next year. There will also most likely be announcements about the event!” she says.
Thank you Angie for participating in the interview with me!
The students who talked at the event had a lot of interesting topics, and I will include a brief summary of them! Evie Sellers was up first, and she talked about the topic of having 12 years to change the world. She went over how our generation is going to be the next ones to deal with the world’s problems and what we can do to get involved.
The next speaker was Cody Timmer, and he talked about the importance of manufacturing classes. He said that jobs with manufacturing are in high demand, and it’s an important skill to have whether to get you a job or help you learn life lessons along the way.
Next was Nicolas Greaves, who talked about the expansion of our universe, which was a very fascinating topic to hear about personally. It’s an important skill to know how the universe around us works!
Fatima Farooq talked about the importance of beauty and culture in our world, and the idea that humans are so similar despite being so unique and different. She also talked about the concept of comparing oneself to others.
Tyler Kelly talked about how our generation can make a difference offline instead of online. He advocated that we can make more of a difference by getting involved in person with activism instead of just claiming to be one online.
Emma Mickelson talked about the truth about body image and how your own opinion about your own body affects you.
Last but not least, Amenah Syed talked about racial, ethnic, and religious stereotyping, and how it has affected her in the past.
Thank you again to Angie for agreeing to have an interview with me, and thank you to all of the speakers at the Voices of FHS to take a step up to speak at the event!
