School News Week of Feb. 16
Bethel Park High School vocalists selected to perform in the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association’s Region Chorus Concert are: front, from left, Molly Hoffman, Jessica Abraham, Olivia Vituccio, Kelsey Aronhalt and Declan Brusoski; middle, Ashley Lewis, Kelsey Rogers, Evan Isenberg, Anthony Will and Collin McCormick; back, Anna Rosemeier, Bill Kumer, Kessid Wicker, Kadin Gray and Andrew Fullerton.
Upper St. Clair’s Botsburgh #11792 has qualified to compete at the Pennsylvania FIRST Tech Challenge Championship.
Bethel Park High School musicians selected to play in the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association’s Region Orchestra Concert are, from left, Theresa Stolpa, Jaxon Stewart, Bill Kumer and Elijah Nice.
Bethel Park
• Fifteen Bethel Park High School vocalists successfully auditioned and have been selected to perform in the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association’s Region Chorus Concert, which will be held Feb. 28 at Hickory High School in Hermitage.
Representing Bethel Park are seniors Jessica Abraham (soprano 1), Molly Hoffman (soprano 1), Ashley Lewis (alto 1), Kelsey Rogers (soprano 2) and Anthony Will (tenor 1), as well as juniors Kelsey Aronhalt (soprano 2), Declan Brusoski (bass 2), Andrew Fullerton (bass 1), Kadin Gray (tenor 2), Bill Kumer (bass 1), Colin McCormick (bass 2) and Oliva Vituccio (soprano 1).
Also singing in the concert will be sophomores Evan Isenberg (tenor 2), Anna Rosemeier (alto 1) and Kessid Wicker (tenor 1).
The students are taught by Bethel Park High School choral director Todd Kuczawa.
• Four Bethel Park High School musicians successfully auditioned and have been selected to play in the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association’s Region Orchestra Concert, which will be held on March 14 at North Allegheny High School.
Representing Bethel Park are seniors Jaxon Stewart (clarinet) and Theresa Stolpa (French horn) as well as juniors William Kumer (cello) and Elijah Nice (percussion).
The students are taught by Bethel Park High School Orchestra director Stephanie Glover and band director Chad Thompson.
Upper St. Clair
• A team of Upper St. Clair High School students, Botsburgh #11792, has qualified to compete at the Pennsylvania FIRST Tech Challenge Championship on Feb. 29 and March 1 at Red Lion Area Senior High School, near York.
Team members are junior Nathan Scher; sophomores Varun Damarla, Sambhav Saggi, Sujay Shah, Nitish Sharma; and freshman Sahil Bhalodia. The students are coached by Hunaid Nulwala, Ketan Shah and Alan Scher, along with Upper St. Clair senior Moez Nulwala, who serves as a mentor.
The FIRST Tech Challenge is an international robotics competition for students in grades seven through 12. As a team, the students design, build and program a robot that meets various challenges in the game posed by FIRST.
Botsburgh qualified for the state competition by placing third in the Inspire Award category at the West Central Pennsylvania Qualifier in Johnstown. The team was recognized for hosting several community events at the Upper St. Clair Township Library aimed at introducing Science Technology Engineering Arts and Math to children.
Efforts included a robot petting zoo and city maker events. In addition, the team was lauded for developing a modular approach to programming that simplified the Java code. The team placed this code under the MIT license, and it is available for free on github.com.
Most recently, Botsburgh earned the Collins Aerospace Innovation Award at the Blue & White Qualifier. Approximately 25 teams from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Delaware competed in the daylong event on Jan. 19.
Materials for the sensors were provided by two local advance materials technology startups, Liquid Ion Solutions LLC and Crystal Plex Corp.