Category Archives: Technology

Ms. Ball Wins “Teachers are Heroes” Award

Ms. Ball, winner of ABC2 Teacher Hero award (Photo: John Dingzon, Patterson Press)

Ms. Ball, winner of ABC2 Teacher Hero award (Photo: Amadou Bah, Patterson Press)

By John Dingzon,

This year’s nominee of Teachers are Heroes was Ms. Sharon Ball. She was nominated by her colleague Mr. Nicolas Yates. Ms. Ball used to be an Engineer; now she’s a teacher at Patterson High school. She teaches Engineering classes, coaches Robotics, and mentors students in STEM programs.

She won the award of Teachers are Heroes, sponsored by MEW & ABC 2 News. Ms. Ball said when she found out she won, “I was surprised and excited.”

Ms. Ball would like to thank her colleague Mr. Yates for getting nominated so she could receive the award of Teachers are Heroes.

 

Coding Club is Back to Making Apps

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Coding club (photo: Mohamed)

by Mohamed Alhamdani

Coding Club is back at it again!

Coding Club is an inspiring way to learn about computer science, Cyber security and a lot more things about the internet-even apps. In Coding Club, you can make websites; it’s about developing knowledge that is useful to have. In Coding Club, you learn new things that it is very far beyond the average human knowledge. It can give you a pathway of engineering or computer science.

“Coding club is a fun that to learn,” Mr.Yates said. “And at Coding Club, we have fun and snacks. We make a lot of things that you will like.”

Now you can even get the Patterson app. Download it on Playstore or the App Store.

Coding club is on Wednesdays after school in Mr. Yates’ room, #110, at 3:45. All are welcome.

Patterson continues tradition with 6th annual community fair

A stand from the community Fair (Photo: Patterson Press)

A stand from the community Fair (Photo: Patterson Press)

By Mikal McCoy,

Patterson High School had its 6th annual Back to School Night and Community Fair on the evening of September 22, 2016. Students, teachers and family members met together in the cafeteria to share a night of fun.

During the fair, there were games, activities and food. “It was a lot of food, a lot of chicken, vegetables and drinks”, said Yero Goloco, a student who attended the fair. For entertainment, different activities were planned. Students who were asked agreed that the fair was entertaining. “There was a lady belly dancing, people played drums, and there was a dance battle”, said Amadou Bah, another student who attended the fair. These responses reveal that people enjoyed the food and activities, but the Community Fair served other purposes as well.

Many families attended the fair. Students from Patterson High School invited their parents, friends, and relatives. Around 500 people attended the event. Dozens of community organizations, businesses and universities participated in the fair, along with many school groups and programs such as Robotics, Gardening, Coding Club and more. Each club had a stand with representatives who spoke with students and family members about what they do.

One group that attended the Community Fair was Patterson’s AFJROTC program. Cadets who attended the event helped out with setting up and seating visitors. “I was standing outside, greeting people, giving them their tickets for their sheets”, explained Abdullah, one of the cadets. Teachers, students and family members came together to make the Community Fair a success.

This year marked the 6th consecutive year that there has been a community fair event at Patterson. Ms. O’Brien and Mr. Alukwu started the event in 2011. “It was an idea that Mr. Alukwu and I came up with the summer before Mr. Benton became the principal”, recalled Ms. O’Brien. It takes planning, organization, and thought to come up with an idea like a school community fair and make it work. This year’s event was no exception.

 

 

 

 

iPhone 7 Vs. Galaxy Note 7 (REVIEW)

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Note 7 vs iPhone 7 (graphic by Faran Nadeem)

By Amadou Bah and Faran Nadeem,

Recently–if you haven’t noticed–the iPhone 7 just released on Sep. 16, 2016 and the Galaxy Note 7 was released on the 19th of August 2016. While the Galaxy Note 7 is having some problems, both are good phones. According to CNN, “Samsung is recalling millions of new Galaxy Note 7 smartphones worldwide after reports of the devices catching fire while charging. Samsung said Friday it had found problem with the battery in some of the phones and was halting sales. In the coming weeks it will offer customers a new product for free to replace all 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7 that have been sold.” Overall, The Galaxy Note 7 is the hottest phone out in Samsung market. Faster, much better display, better camera, stronger screen, easier to use, easier to transfer data, easier to backup. Galaxy does everything iPhone does and has far more useful features, making multi-tasking very easy.

The iPhone 7 has added new features like the Dual camera, battery life, higher basic storage option and IP67 water resistance. Yes, the headphones jack has been removed which is a con for it. According to Yahoo Finance, “Whilst the loss of the headphone jack means more space for a bigger battery, the loss of a stalwart feature is – at least initially – a negative. For those of you with expensive headphones, there’s a lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack connector that comes with the iPhone 7, but accessories are notoriously flimsy and easy to lose. If you’re in the market for new headphones, you’ll be limited to wireless and lightning compatible products, wiping out a whole raft of options. If you want to charge your iPhone whilst using wired headphones, however, you’ll have to fork out for a $49 lightning dock. The additional costs of removing the headphone jack keep racking up. Next year is also the 10th year of the iPhone. So if you’re close to upgrade time, it might be a good idea to wait. The iPhone 7 is very much a small upgrade on the 6S, whereas next year’s promises something more special to commemorate a decade of Apple smartphones.” Even though the headphones jack has been removed, the Apple Company still offers adapters if you still use regular headphones.

One interesting fact is that Apple finally teamed up with Nintendo to release Super Mario Run for iOS. It’s also a stock jump that’s more directly driven by Nintendo’s actions than Pokemon Go was. Since Super Mario Run is being developed by Nintendo, the company can expect a bigger cut of the revenue from the game’s success than it could with Pokemon Go, which was developed by Niantic, and published by The Pokemon Company.

According to Nintendo Team, The Super Mario Run is set to release in December for a fixed price, with a set of in-app purchases that Nintendo has yet to fully detail.

In my conclusion, both the iPhone 7 & Galaxy Note 7 are good phones for staying in contact with your family and friends or conducting any other type of business with someone. If you look at the chart below you will see some comparison between both phones.

Specification chart

(Source:  via YouTube – EveryThingApplePro)

NFL uses virtual reality to enhance fans’ experience

By Christian Pietrowski,

The NFL is in the process of changing the way technology is being used. According to CNN Student News and MetLife stadium, the New York Jets and the New York Giants are the first to do a lot of technological advancements.

By using virtual reality, they have a booth set up where people can play the NFL game live in virtual reality where it looks like the fans are on the field. This new technology has brought millions of new fans to the stadium to try it out. Other NFL stadiums are in the process of trying this out to bring in more money.

Also there’s a option you can see what it is like to soar 1000 feet over New York City while sitting in the passenger seat of the iconic MetLife Blimp.

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MetLife stadium

So the next time you are at MetLife Stadium make sure you try this unique experience! The experience is free but you can only have up to 5 minutes to do it so everyone has a chance to experience this new technology. The New York Jets are hoping this technology will spread to every NFL stadium.

BONUS CONTENT: Student Bookbinding Contest winners

Here are the cover pages and inside spreads from all of the winners of the Patterson bookbinding contest. More information is available on the front page of the May 2016 print edition of the Patterson Press.

 

Could our smart phones be making us dumber?

By Diana Nguyen and Manuel Aguina,

Kids today have phones, laptops, and other electronic devices that have games and are ways to communicate with others. The reason many kids have low grades and act rudely, and why people may say this generation is messed up, could be these electronic devices. Some of the people kids communicate with online could be a bad influence because these people are sharing inappropriate things, trying to make others think they are cool.

Phones distract people nowadays because people get lost in them, like its the phone, and not their surroundings, that is their one and only focus.  Twelfth grade Patterson student, Adarely Perez, says, “Phones are making us less intelligent because they are too much of a distraction.”

Also, eleventh grader Jordan Dennis says, “Phones are making us lazy in the way that you can connect with people faster and it makes life for a teenager easier.”

Most people nowadays focus on their social media status. Social media did not used to be so common on mobile devices, so when it first came to mobile devices, people were hooked on it like a drug. On devices now, it is common to see people sending tweets, posting statuses, or sending pictures. It has grown to a point that in schools, students just look at their tiny screens and forget everything else.

Although phones may sound like they are making us dumb, they can also make us smarter. Our mobile device is a highly intelligent device. “IPhone or Samsung Galaxy in your pocket is actually an incredibly sophisticated networking computer”, explains Andrew Keen, author from up front magazine. Some people don’t really understand the power that they have in their pockets the power to use a super calculator, write stories, or even edit movies, but they rarely use those powers. Apps on mobile devices help people edit movies, read books, get news , and also can help learn new things about a specific subject from science to math. Mr Mello says “No. Phones make us dumb only in the way we use them, but they are really good learning tools.”

The point is that phones can be seen as bad and good. Many people can argue that phones are making us dumber but they only see the social media  side of phones. People who see the social media side to phones only think of selfies, videos, and chatting. Other people can see the technological side of the phones, they see that phones are a learning tool. The people who do see the tech side of phones see the immense power like problem solving to reading books.

Students create puzzle cubes

Students try to put together the puzzle cubes their classmates created (Photo: Ms. Varela)

By Leonard Fields,

Editor’s Note: Ms. Varela’s engineering class made puzzle cubes (three dimensional puzzles) for other students and staff members to solve. This is one student’s reflection on the project.

Unit 4 was mostly about a box that my classmates and I had to create. The hardest part about the box creation was the start. When I had to pick on piece and begin from there. My teacher was a big help for me, she helped me with my brainstorming and my creations of my box but she did not create the box for me. She made sure I knew what I was doing. My classmates where a big help, they helped me understand everything also, when I was confused and my teacher was already helping someone, someone that knew would explain it for me. I didn’t really realize how much my teacher helped me understand everything until we had visitors to come and test out our puzzle cubes, and everyone was struggling to put my puzzle together.

One thing that runs in my family is creativity. So when I had a chance to use my creativity I was determined to make it the best one in the class. My determination level rose when I realized how much fun this could be for me, and how much it could help me understand better.

The brainstorming was a good part for me, it took me a long time to brainstorm the rest of my cube. To tell the truth my time management was a little bit bad. If my time management was better I would have finished a lot earlier, when I was almost done I stayed after school to finish my work.

When I was presenting my puzzle and the work I completed on the computer I had to be professional I couldn’t be playing around because when I get older I’m going to have to be a professional and be mature. It’s not easy to talk professionally about something as complicated as this. I thought it was going to be easy but in all honesty it really wasn’t, I thought it was going be easy because I understood the work I just couldn’t explain it fully, but I did it eventually.

The thinking outside the box wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, like I said starting off my box was arguably the hardest part of my project. So when I had to think of a couple more pieces to create a 3×3 box wasn’t that hard. The easiest part of creating my pieces was the measuring and putting it all together for the final piece.

This project helped me understand the ipt files, the iam files, the idw files, and the ipn files. When we first started working with inventor pro 2015 it wasn’t easy for me. Now that I have experience doing all 4 of the files, is became easy.

When everyone was struggling to put my box together that was a sign of achievement for me. All my work payed off. My teacher, my classmates, myself I don’t just give the credit to myself I give it to everyone that helped me complete this.

Lockheed Martin talks to students about engineering

Students pay close attention to Lockheed Martin presentation (Photo: Patterson Press)

By Alex Hunt,

The Robotics Club brought in an engineering contractor for the government to talk to students about pursuing a careen in engineering and technology. The guest speaker came from Lockheed Martin, a Maryland-based company that is making the F-35 Lightning II  airplane for the Air Force.

The U.S. government has hired Lockheed Martin to produce a wide range of aerospace and defense aircraft, ground vehicles, missiles, guided weapons, missile defense systems, naval systems, radar  systems, sensors, situational awareness tactical communications, training and logistics, and safety management unmanned systems. Lockheed Martin also makes non-military high tech devices, such as a “food printer” that uses food coloring and other materials to make food.

“The Robotics Program at Patterson is great friends with Lockheed Martin”, explained Ms. Ball, an engineering teacher and the faculty advisor for the Robotics Club. “Lockheed Martin helps kids to become interested in the engineering career and also give kids a main set of ideas of what to say and do when you become an adult engineer.”

According to Ms. Ball, Patterson students benefit greatly from the encouragement and knowledge about real-world education and careers given by companies like Lockheed Martin.

Patterson hosts 4th annual community fair

A youth percussion band performs at the Community Fair (Photo: Patterson Press)

by Xavier Williams,

Patterson High School held it’s 4th annual community fair and back to school night inside the school’s cafeteria on September 25 from 5:30 to 8:00. It was held to motivate students to help and support their school and get help from their community.

At the community fair there were different organizations sharing some services to students so they can help them be successful in the future. So many great colleges, companies and non-profit organizations came like, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center,  Morgan State University, Towson University and the University of Baltimore, New York life insurance and the Real Food Farm. One of the people that worked at the University of  Baltimore explained that they had come to the fair to “[recruit] students to come to the university and to inspire them to go to college”. There were more people from different groups that participated in the community fair, including a United States Marine who said he is looking forward to speaking with male and female students to help them become successful.

There was a belly dancer, flamenco dancer and hip hop dancers as well. The hip hop dancers were male students from Patterson who did an amazing  job performing at the fair.

I asked Mr.Benton,  “After seeing the laughter and happiness here at the community fair do you think that Patterson High School will be a top 500 school?” and he said he always believed Patterson High School would be a top 500 school and that the school strives for greatness.

I agree with that 100 hundred percent because we do strive for greatness and after seeing how great the fair turn out to be i’m just really proud of my school.this years community fair turned out to be a blast. Everyone enjoyed it, they danced they laughed and they ate. It felt like they were happy to be there and they had a great time. People who were at the fair expressed that next year’s fair will be even bigger.

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