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Debate Team Makes State History

SEM Debate competed at the UIL CX debate state tournament March 17, 2018. Please help me congratulate the following students on their accomplishments:

Storm Lasseter won the golden gavel, which is awarded to the top individual speaker in the state. This award is usually won by a senior, and Storm beat out over one hundred other students.

Sophie Rahman and Olivia Northcutt-Wyly became the first team from DISD in decades to place. Sophie and Olivia won all of their preliminary debates (including beating Coppell, a very competitive team) and won sixth place.

Storm Lasseter and Juan Diaz made the octafinals (sweet sixteen).

This is the first time any school from Dallas has had two teams in the top sixteen, and the first time a team of two girls from Dallas has placed.

Prior to state, SEM placed second place at the varsity city championships, qualifying Sophie and Olivia to nationals for the second year. We will be going to Washington, DC to represent Dallas at the National Association of Urban Debate League Nationals. Olivia was first place individual speaker, Sophie was second, and Benjamin Hernandez was fifth. Olivia has won the top individual award at every Dallas meet this year.

Thank you for your continued support of the debate team – next up is novice/JV city championships.

— Mary Gregg

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Shelly Goel Wins at Texas Science and Engineering Fair 2018

SEM Junior Shelly Goel competed at the Texas Science and Engineering Fair 2018 in San Antonio, TX. She won the highest award of the evening: Senior Division Best of Show Award given to the top project in the High School Division. This is the first time any student from Dallas ISD has won the Best of Show Award at the Texas Science and Engineering Fair.

She also won 1st Place Grand Physical Sciences Award in the Senior division after being awarded 1st Place in her Biomedical Engineering category. Shelly also won the 1st place Special Award from the Texas Board of Professional Engineers Future Engineer Award.

Additionally, Shelly qualified for and will be competing at the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in May in Pittsburgh, PA.

Shelly’s project is titled An Electronic Device With An Integrated Mobile App for Early Detection of Cardiovascular Diseases: A Low-Cost, Easy-To-Use, Non-Invasive Device And Comprehensive, Multi-Parametric Smartphone App. In her research, she developed a low-cost, easy-to-use, non-invasive electronic device to obtain a continuous blood pressure waveform at the Brachial artery. The device was integrated with a user-friendly “Blood Pressure Analytics” Smartphone App for real-time, multi-parametric analysis and comprehensive assessment of a patient’s cardiovascular condition. Minimal training and expertise is required to operate the Device and App allows for its integration in any environment including the home setting, thus creating a major global impact. Using this device as part of an annual wellness visit at primary care physician’s office can largely eliminate sudden “silent” deaths through monitoring of the progression of cardiovascular condition in middle-age adults and accordingly directing them to specialists for optimal treatment early on.

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Fighters for Filtration

Hydrology Club Lexus Eco Challenge Fighters For Filtration

Last year, the team won 1st place in the Land and Water part of the Lexus Eco Challenge and $10,000 in scholarships.

View Challenge 1: Land & Water – Hydrology Club Presentation Runoff Resolvers

Exciting March 19, 2018 Update!

SEM team won FIRST place in the Lexus Eco Challenge for their environmental action plan titled “Fighters for Filtration”.

The prize entailed a combined $15,000 prize for the school, teacher adviser (i.e. Mr. McLoda), and the students!

Hunter Adams, Kimmy Chang, Austin Davis, Isabel Ferguson, Olivia Northcutt-Wyly, and Ginger Simon

This was an expansion of previous efforts and took many hours and many weeks of hard work.

Additionally, their work continues to make a tangible impact on providing safe drinking water and water pollution awareness on an international level.

Check out this PDF Summary of their project and the competition.

David McLoda

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TMSCA Team Places at State Meet in San Antonio

Tmsca State

On March 17th, the Science/Engineering Magnet Math and Science teams traveled to San Antonio to compete against the top math and science teams from across the state at the Texas Math and Science Coaches Association (TMSCA) State Meet. TMSCA exists to support the math and science UIL programs in Texas and hosts this meet each year to give teams from all across the state a chance to see how they compare as the District, Region and State UIL Meets approach.

Tmsca State Seniors With Newton

SEM had a great performance, placing 3rd overall in the State out of 39 6A schools. The following students placed in the top 10 in the state for their grade:

Number Sense – 2nd place team

  • Raviraj Rege – 1st place, 12th grade
  • Yash Chandak – 2nd place, 12th grade
  • Tomisin Ogunfunmi – 6th place, 11th grade
  • Pranay Varada – 6th place, 9th grade

Calculator Applications – 2nd place team

  • Raviraj Rege – 1st place, 12th grade
  • Yash Chandak – 3rd place, 12th grade
  • Victor Diaz – 1st place, 11th grade

Mathematics – 3rd place team

  • Raviraj Rege – 1st place, 12th grade
  • Yash Chandak – 6th place, 12th grade
  • Moises Trejo – 9th place, 12th grade
  • Victor Diaz – 6th place, 11th grade

Science – 6th place team

  • Raviraj Rege – 7th place, 12th grade

Top Gun

The Top Gun award is for the top student in each grade. Students are awarded points each time they place in the top 15 of an event, and the student with the most points at the end of the day is named the Top Gun. We had three students who finished in the top 6 of the Top Gun standings for their grades. Both seniors will be receiving a scholarship from TMSCA.

  • Raviraj Rege – 1st place, 12th grade
  • Yash Chandak – 2nd place, 12th grade
  • Victor Diaz – 5th place, 11th grade

Please congratulate these students on their performance, and thank you to all of the students that competed for SEM.

Josh Newton

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ACDEC team advances to State Academic Decathlon Competition

Acdec Regional Team

Congrats to SEM’s ACDEC team! They will advance to the State Academic Decathlon Competition by earning top scores in their division at the Region XII competition held Jan. 19-20 at Seagoville High School.

The School of Science and Engineering took first place in the large school division.

All four schools will represent the district at the state competitions Feb. 23-25. The large division schools will compete in San Antonio. The medium and small division schools will travel to Frisco for the state competition.

The Academic Decathlon is designed to include students from all academic backgrounds. Each nine-member team consists of three A students, three B students and three C students. In addition to a seven-minute interview, an essay and two speeches, written comprehensive exams are given in music, art, literature, mathematics, economics, social science, and the Super Quiz. This year’s theme was Africa.

Overall Team Results

Large Division

School of Science and Engineering: First Place
School for Talented and Gifted: Second Place
Irma Rangel Young Women Leadership Academy: Third Place

Super Quiz Results

School of Science and Engineering: Second Placed

Full Results are below:

2018 Region XII Academic Decathlon Medal Winners

For Academic Decathlon, there are three divisions based on GPA. They are varsity, scholastic & honors. Students compete against others from their same division for medals in each decathlon event.

Economics:

  • Varsity Bronze- Mariana Rubio
  • Scholastic Bronze- Cristhian Mujica & Juan Vivero
  • Scholastic Silver – Jeanette Lomeli
  • Honors Silver- Tomisin Ogunfunmi
  • Honors Gold- Ammar Alinur

Art:

  • Varsity Bronze – Mariana Rubio
  • Scholastic Gold – Jeanette Lomeil
  • Honors Silver- Tomisin Ogunfunmi

Literature:

  • Varsity Gold- Mariana Rubio
  • Scholastic Silver- Juan Vivero
  • Scholastic Gold – Jeanette Lomeli
  • Honors Bronze- Tomisin Ogunfunmi
  • Honors Silver- Mariam Joseph

Math:

  • Varsity Bronze – Xavier Moreno
  • Varsity Gold- Mariana Rubio
  • Scholastic Silver – Juan Vivero
  • Scholastic Gold- Cristhian Mujica
  • Honors Silver – Ammar Alinur
  • Honors Gold- Tomisin Ogunfunmi

Music:

  • Scholastic Gold- Jeanette Lomeli
  • Honors Bronze- Mariam Joseph
  • Honors Gold – Ammar Alinur

Science:

  • Varsity Bronze- Xavier Moreno
  • Scholastic Gold- Jeanette Lomeli
  • Honors Bronze- Tomisin Ogunfunmi

Social Science:

  • Varsity Bronze- Mariana Rubio
  • Scholastic Silver- Cristhian Mujica
  • Honors Gold- Jeanette Lomeli

Essay:

  • Scholastic Silver- Cristhian Mujica
  • Scholastic Gold- Jeanette Lomeli
  • Honors Bronze- Mariam Joseph

Interview:

  • Varsity Silver- Xavier Moreno
  • Scholastic Bronze- Cristhian Mujica
  • Scholastic Silver- Jeanette Lomeli & Juan Vivero
  • Honors Bronze- Tomisin Ogunfunmi
  • Honors Silver- Ammar Alinur

Speech:

  • Varsity Bronze- Mariana Rubio
  • Scholastic Gold- Jeanette Lomeli
  • Honors Bronze- Mariam Joseph

Super Quiz: 2nd place

Overall: 1st place team

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TAME Divisional Competition

Tame Divisional Competition

9TH GRADE:
Math: 1st – Caleb Simmons
Science: 3rd – Caleb Simmons
ACE (qualifies automatically to state): Caleb Simmons

10TH GRADE:
Math: 6th – Jaime Alvarez, 4th – Ivan Reyes, 3rd – Francisco Marquez, 2nd – Carlos Medrano
Science: 6th – Oziel de la Fuente, 5th – Valentin Trujillo, 4th – Ivan Reyes, 3rd – Francisco Marquez, 2nd – Carlos Medrano

12TH GRADE:
Math: 6th – Daniela Tapia, 5th – Edmond Anderson, 3rd – D’Juan Taylor, 2nd – Abdul Rafai
Science: 6th – Daniela Tapia, 5th – Edmond Anderson, 2nd – D’Juan Taylor

ENGINEERING DESIGN CHALLENGE:
Judge’s Choice: 3rd Windcatch (Caleb Simmons), 2nd Flying Cone (Abdul, Daniela, Francisco, Daisy), 1st Pink Pipe (Ivan)
Design Challenge: 3rd Parachute Apparatus 7000 (Valentin), 2nd Operation 007 (Eduardo Chavez), 1st Bullseye (Laura Thompson) [advances to State]

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DUDA Winter Tournament

Duda Winter Tournament Debate Team

On January 27, 2018, SEM debate competed at the first winter DUDA tournaments. This was a great weekend for the team – most novices debated in the Junior Varsity level for the first time, and we fielded a new Varsity partnership with Olivia Northcutt-Wyly and Juan Diaz. Mr. Palacios was able to come by after magnet testing and support the students!

Results:

NOVICE

15th place speaker – John Ramos

JV

  • 2nd place speaker – Renee Merrick
  • 11th place speaker – Sravani Boggaram
  • 8th place team – Vanessa Vasquez and Isra Alinur

VARSITY

  • 1st place team – Olivia Northcutt-Wyly and Juan Diaz
  • 1st place speaker – Olivia Northcutt-Wyly
  • 4th place speaker – Juan Diaz

Thank you to Leslie Jaramillo for producing this write up and serving as our team historian.

Next up – Varsity City Championships/National Qualifiers and UIL state.

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SEM Debaters qualify for State

Debate Team State Qualifier 2018
Photo: Olivia Northcutt-Wyly (Soph), Sophie Rahman (Jr.), Juan Diaz (Jr.), Storm Lasseter (Jr.)

January 14, 2018, six SEM debaters competed at the UIL state qualifying tournament. Please help me congratulate Sophie Rahman and Olivia Northcutt-Wyly who won first place and qualified to state for the second year in a row. Also qualifying is Storm Lasseter and Juan Diaz, who won second place at the district competition. SEM beat out teams from TAG, Law Magnet, Irma Rangel, Garza, and other 6A schools to earn both spots.

Our third team, Benjamin Hernandez and Eduardo Heyer, lost only one debate round, and had a fantastic showing. Both Benjamin and Eduardo stuck around to coach their teammates to victory – thanks guys!

Our four debaters will be attending UIL state over spring break in Austin. Thank you for your continued support of the debate team. Next up – city championships and the qualifying tournament for nationals.

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Debate Fall City Championships 2017

On December 1st and 2nd, the SEM Novice and Varsity debaters attended the Dallas Urban Debate Alliance Fall City Championship at Thomas Jefferson High School. Listed below are the awards:

Individual Awards:

Novice

  • 1st place Novice: Donovan Rodgers
  • 11th place Novice: John Ramos
  • 12th place Novice: Vanessa Vasquez

Varsity

  • 1st place Varsity: Olivia Northcutt- Wyly
  • 2nd place Varsity: Storm Lasseter
  • 3rd place Varsity: Sophie Rahman
  • 4th place Varsity: Benjamin Hernandez
  • 8th place Varsity: Juan Diaz

Team Awards:

Novice

  • 10th place Novice: Jennifer Granados and John Ramos
  • 11th place Novice: Isra Alinur and Vanessa Vasquez
  • 12th place Novice: Sravani and Katelyn Candido

Varsity

  • 1st place Varsity: Storm Lasseter and Juan Diaz
  • 3rd place Varsity: Olivia Northcutt- Wyly and Sophie Rahman
  • Also competing was Benjamin Hernandez who debated well enough for elimination debates but was excluded because he debated without a partner.

Please Congratulate all of our hard working debaters on an amazing Tournament!

Thank you to everyone for all the hard work and dedication. Go eagles!

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Iron Reign Qualifies for Oklahoma State Championship

Robotics Iron Reign Oklahoma Qualifier Winning Captains
Photo: Janavi Chada, Charlotte Leakey, Austin Davis, Evan Daane (BTW), Akshay Jaity (photobomb), Tycho Virani,
Kenna Tanaka, Karina Lara, Abhi Bhattaru, Ethan Helfman

Iron Reign kicked off their break with a competition in Oklahoma where they qualified for the Oklahoma State Championship to be held in February.

They were the Winning Alliance Captain team and won the 2nd Inspire Award and Control Award. Now they are turning their attention to the North Texas Region where they are the defending Regional Champions. Iron Reign and SEM Robotics now need your help as we seek to host our first Qualifying Tournament on December 16th.

Iron Reign (team 6832), The School of Science and Engineering and the Dallas ISD STEM Department are happy to announce that we are hosting a FIRST Tech Challenge qualifying tournament at our Townview campus December 16th. Between 28 and 32 North Texas robotics teams will compete for awards and a limited number of advancements to the Regional Championship to be held in February.

Calling All Volunteers
This is the first time our school has hosted an official qualifying tournament and we will need your help to make it an experience equal to SEM’s standards. This is a full day event on Saturday, December 16. There are also options to help with setup Friday afternoon December 15. Please feel free to circulate this message to everyone in the SEM community who can contribute their time and expertise.
All the details on the day’s events and how to volunteer are laid out here… http://www.ironreignrobotics.com/2017-11-27-sem-tournament/

The PTSA will host the concession stand. We will sell a variety of snack foods in addition to a taco/salad/nacho bar. We would love to have your assistance with donations as well as your signing up to work a shift. Proceeds will go to the PTSA to fund our events/programs.