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Monday Morning Messages 5 / 1 / 2000 The teams and individuals who won awards and scholarships are posted on the Challenge web page. The Los Alamos National Laboratory press release covering the Awards Day is linked from the home page. There was also coverage in the Wednesday evening edition of the Albuquerque Tribune. The Judges have offered to talk or meet with any team who would like feedback on their work. Any team who turned in a report is invited to write to Consult and we will link you up with judge. We hope that those of you who won prizes and awards will take a few minutes to write a thank-you note to your benefactor(s). Please write to Consult if you aren't sure to whom you should write. Writing the note is a good thing to do in and of itself. It also encourages the giver to be generous to other Challenge students in the future because they can see that their gift made a difference. Thanks for getting the notes written in a timely fashion. We are still welcoming applications for the Summer Teacher Training Session to be held at Western New Mexico University in Silver City. The dates are June 11-23. Please write to Consult for details about stipends, room and board, text books and curriculum. The Challenge community, Consult, the Judges, Mentors, the sponsors and supporters, extend their congratulations to the 1999-2000 teams and their teachers and sponsors. We admire your accomplishments and are pleased to be in your company. Non-finalist Challenge accounts will be turned off of June 1st but accounts of the finalist team members will remain until next October when mode/pi need to be prepared for the 2000-2001 Challenge. Teacher accounts will remain available over the summer. Betsy, Celia, David, and Eric 4 / 24 / 2000 Good Morning New Mexico High School Supercomputing Challenge! Here we are at the culmination of the 10th Annual Challenge Year. We are busy making final arrangements for the Awards Day Celebrations on Wednesday, the 26th. Newly updated maps are posted to http://www.challenge.nm.org. Remember to write to Consult if you have questions this week. We will be less available by phone. Remember that the Awards Ceremony is a formal occasion. Three piece suits aren't necessary, but wear what you might if you were invited out to a special occasion "dress up" dinner. Finalists: You are certainly familiar with the schedule. Reminder: you have 1/2 hour to practice in the room where you will present to the judges. That gives you time to set up the computer with your files and make sure that everything is working as you planned. And, of course, we expect you to be wearing what you would to make a formal presentation. In other words, dressed up. At the Awards Ceremony, the first and second place teams will be asked to make precise 3-5 minute presentations of their projects. You will not have props or computers, so you will need to be articulate. You will not know until just before the presentation whether or not you are in first or second place, so all finalist teams need to be prepared! Our phone number at the Hilltop is 505.662.2441. If you have an emergency, please call and ask for Betsy Frederick or Celia Einhorn. We probably will not be in our room, but we will check for messages or you might persuade the desk to send someone to find us. Good luck, finalists. We are looking forward to seeing all of you and celebrating this very fine 10th Annual Challenge, 1999-2000. Betsy, Celia, David, and Eric 4 / 17 / 2000 Good Morning! Today's message is about the Summer Teacher Training Session. We are asking students to please pass this message along to teachers they think might be interested in the Session. This year's Summer Teacher Training Session will be held at Western New Mexico University from June 11-23. All expenses will be paid including housing, food allowance, expense stipend, graduate credit for the course, and books. The course will be a 3-credit graduate course through the School of Education. Possible topics will include: Java or C++ programming, Unix, HTML, Mathematics software such as Matlab and Mathematica, Mathematical Modeling, and a general overview of the Supercomputing Challenge program. This course will be targeted towards the beginning and intermediate level participant. Specific details will be available on the Challenge web page soon after the Awards Day activities. E-mail Consult if you are interested in participating. 4 / 10 / 2000 The competitive Final Reports have been xeroxed and delivered to the judges. Consult will review the non-competitive entries and send brief comments via e-mail to B Teams. The scholarship applications have also been sent to the judges. The judges will choose the finalist teams in a conference call on the 19th. The results will be posted on the web after the call, probably around 4pm. We will phone the teacher/sponsors of all teams that afternoon, evening or early the next morning. Now is the time to be polishing up the posters. Remember that teams bring a Technical Poster and a Graphical Poster. The Technical Poster is the cover for the publication of the Finalists Reports and the Graphical Poster becomes the logo for the 00-01 Challenge. Details including prize money is at http://www.challenge.nm.org/AwardsDay/poster.shtml. Have a good week! Betsy, Celia, David, and Eric 4 / 3 / 2000 Wednesday, April 5, is a Big Day in the Challenge Year. We are sure you know where to go for help but just in case ... You can write to consult for information, advice, and problem-solving help. The magic URL is http://www.challenge.nm.org - the Challenge home page has links to requirments for: Scholarship Applications We have received one team's hard copy final report - Team 83 from Plaza Learning Center in Santa Fe got their report to us late last week. Thank you! We plan to be mail complete sets of the final reports to the judges by week's end. They will review them and will have a telephone conference call in the afternoon on the 19th of April to select the finalist teams. Finalists will be posted immediately on the Web site. Each teacher of a finalist team will receive a phone call from Celia or Betsy on the afternoon/evening of the 19th or the morning of the 20th to confirm finalist status. Remember that you can keep right on working on your projects. If you are a finalist you will need a presentation for Final Judging. If your project has developed since you turned in your Final Report, it is fine to include the new material. All of us at Consult are looking forward to your reports and to seeing you at Awards Day celebrations. The Final Report is an important milestone and we are proud of your good work. Betsy, Celia, David, and Eric 3 / 27 / 2000 You have less than nine days to get your final report into Technet by April 5th! Don't forget to remember your mailing time! We will be expecting a report from every team who came to Glorieta, whether you are competing or not. Here is a great site which will format your bibliographic date for you for this report (and others you are working on): http://www.open.k12.or.us/osliselem/howto/citeintro.html. Don't forget that scholarship letters are due on April 5th also. Please check out pages 50 and 51 of your handy dandy Challenge handbook or the Challenge website at http://www.challenge.nm.org/scholarships.shtml. There you will note that three scholarships have been added since the printing of the handbook: Eastern, Highlands, and NMSU Physics Scholarships. As always, please contact consult with any questions. Betsy y Celia 3 / 20 / 2000 Happy Canberra Day in Australia! Does anyone know what holiday this is? Today we will be promoting the HTML award. Please start noting from your handy dandy handbook which other awards your team would like to work towards! Last year, ten of the 51 teams finishing the Challenge made an HTML version of their final reports. Two teams, one from Farmington High School, another from the Albuquerque Academy shared the award for the Best HTML version of a final report. Let's see if we can get more than ten teams applying for this award! This HTML version does not take place of the hard copy final report which arrives at Technet on April 5th. As always, please write consult with any questions. Betsy y Celia 3 / 13 / 2000 Good Afternoon! Eric Ovaska has added some links to the Challenge home page that provide really easy access to the important dates for the remainder of the Challenge Year. Remember that April 5 is an especially important date:
Be sure to let us know if you need help with mentoring here in these last three and half weeks. We can also help with your Final Report. We hope you feel that you are making good or reasonable progress. Betsy and Celia PS We are always interested in finding sites of interest to the Challenge community. Have you found any of general interest that have helped you with your project or with learning more about science related topics? 3 / 6 / 2000 Good Evening! The Regional Evaluations are now completed. Our thanks go to Mike Topliff, Head Judge for organizing all of the Evaluations and in particular for hosting the event at New Mexico Tech. Judges who joined Mike Topliff for the NMT Project evaluation wre Arthur B. Maccabe from UNM and Shaun Cooper from NMSU. We appreciate your giving your Saturday to support the NM HS Supercomputing Challenge. There is a lull now in formal Challenge activities and it is time to think about the comments and questions from the Project Evaluation teams and apply them to your work. We hope you will continue to stay in touch with us if you need help. Please be thinking about the scholarship applications which are due on April 5. And talk with your teammates and teacher about plans to come to Los Alamos for Awards Day. The deadline to register for Awards Day is also April 5. Betsy and Celia 2 / 28 / 2000 A big thank you to Sandy Taylor for hosting the Regional Evaluation at Santa Fe Community College. We appreciate your support for the Supercomputing Challenge. And heartfelt thanks, too, to Monte Mitzelfelt, Andrea Palounek, and Thurman Talley for judging the event on Saturday. We appreciate your taking time from your weekend to work with Supercomputing Challenge Teams. Next weekend the Regional Judging will be in Socorro. Those of you going to Tech need be sure to follow the time schedule closely: It is a very full day and very tightly scheduled. Eric Ovaska has been developing the Challenge Technical Guide. We would appreciate your looking at this and letting us know what you think. We are hopeful it will be useful for teams in their planning and project design. The URL for the Technical Guide is http://www.challenge.nm.org/ctg/ and the section that particularly relates to project development and design is http://www.challenge.nm.org/ctg/overview/project.shtml Please take a long look at these two URLs and give us (consult) some feedback. You are the ones who are the best judges of how helpful it is and how it can be made more useful. Until next week, keep on keeping on! Betsy and Celia PS We would really like you to take a look at those URLs. 2 / 22 / 2000 Good Morning! Today marks the real anniversary of George Washington's Birthday. Now is the time for all good Challenge participants to look at that software program Inspiration which we distributed at the kickoff. Think about how it could help you with the final third of the Challenge year. You need to write a final report, due April 5th, and Inspiration will help you outline the report. There are great guidelines for the final report in your handbook. You may be planning the HTML report and Inspiration is perfect for designing a web page. You may need to create a timeline showing who on your team needs to do what and guess what? Inspiration is perfect for that also. No, this is not a commercial, but we want you to utilize this great tool. Could you please share with us ways you have used Inspiration this year or how you plan to use it? Remember that April 5 is the not only the date the Final Reports and Scholarship Applications are due. It is also the deadline to make reservations to come to Los Alamos for the Awards Day Festivities. All teams who complete a Final Report are invited to come to Awards Day but you must register. Regional Evaluations are coming to a close. This Saturday the 26th, there are regional evaluations at Santa Fe Community College. March 4th is the date for the regional evaluations at Socorro! We hope things are going well and that you will continue to stay in touch. Celia Einhorn and Betsy Frederick PS You might want to check out cnn.com on a regular basis. Today's articles include the possible emergency landing of Endeavor as well as a quiz about cyanide and an piece predicting a dry decade for the Southwest in the Nature (Science) section. 2 / 14 / 2000 SCCers! Our public thanks goes out to Sandy Carter, hostess at the Alb. UNM regional evaluation this past weekend and to Ram Das, Betty, Lynette, Darrell at Gallup, UNM,! We really appreciate their time, expertise, cooperation, and equipment! It is now time to let us know if we can help you in any way after the judges' suggestions. Much work can be done on projects now up to when the final reports are due, April 5th. At that time, scholarship letters are due also. And now a drum roll, thanks to the efforts of Challenge judge, Stephen
Pate, NMSU, there is a new scholarship.
See details of all the scholarships at http://www.challenge.nm.org/scholarships.shtml. Note: application process in your handy dandy Challenge notebook. We are starting to plan Awards Day, Wednesday, April 26th! Please start getting your travel plans ready for that date. Celia y Betsy, virtually in Jordan! P.S. Do you have a theory on this? Perhaps this is an idea for your team's 00-01 project! Monday, February 7, 2000
The World Wide Web is growing like a weed. Literally. Scientists say it's developing according to the same organizing patterns and mathematical principles observed among plant life in the wild. Nobody knows exactly why. Check it out at http://www.seattlep-i.com/local/clik07.shtml 2 / 7 / 2000 Congrats to the teams who participated in their regional evaluations on Saturday, February 5th in the southern regions at Eastern and NMSU. We would like to publically thank hosts Ron Obenhaus, ENMU, and Shaun Cooper, NMSU, for their continued support of the Challenge regionals! Please check out the website at http://www.challenge.nm.org/Evaluations/to see when your team is scheduled and for directions to the evaluations! Please email consult@mode.lanl.k12.nm.us with any conflicts. David Kratzer wanted us to tell you, especially teachers, about the announcement for the education portion of SC2000 in Dallas next November. The applications for the Education Program aren't due until the end of May. SC2000 offers middle and high school teachers an opportunity to participate in the SC2000 conference to learn computer modeling and simulation, and its application to the science and mathematics curricula. Participants may also share their classroom experiences through submitted papers. After the conference the selected teachers receive ongoing support from SC2000 staff and continue their training at regional forums. Finally, at SC2001 the teachers will share their experiences with a new group of teachers and will be expected to be leaders in their school systems for a wider adoption of modeling and simulation by additional teachers. Applications for the SC2000 educational leadership program can be made from the SC2000 web page (http://www.sc2000.org/education) soon. Here is a listing of the remaining important dates for this year:
Sincerely yours, Celia (just back from gorgeous Sri Lanka) and Betsy (virtually from Jordan!) P.S. Have you heard about DigiScents? It is a new, private company dedicated to bringing smells to computer games, Web pages and even movies. The company is creating a digital language for recording, re-creating and transmitting fragrances. They will sell a peripheral called the iSmell, that would act as a personal scent synthesizer. Recent olfactory research, combined with work on the international Human Genome Projects has brought rapid advances. So, now your computer can contain over 100 fragrances. Wonder if the palette includes popcorn or chocolate? 1 / 31 / 2000 The schedule for the Regional Evaluations will be posted on the Web Page soon, probably today. Remember that you need to arrive at least 1/2 hour before you are scheduled to present to the judges so that you can get set up and test the equipment before the Evaluation. The judges will take notes on your presentation as well as ask questions. The notes will be xeroxed by a host at the college where you are presenting. Please wait so that you can take the notes with you. A copy of the notes will be included with your final repart and sent to all of the judges. Please write to Consult if you have questions about the presentations. After you see the schedule, if you have a conflict with the Regional Judging schedule you must write to Consult immediately. We have kept careful notes on requests for different times, places, and dates, but it is always possible that we may have missed something. If something comes up between now and your scheduled Evaluation, again, please write to Consult. Remember that Consult mail goes to Mike Topliff, Head Judge, as well as David Kratzer, Eric Ovaska, Celia Einhorn, and Betsy Frederick. We want to meet your needs and in order to do that you need stay in touch with us. We are looking forward to the Judge's notes on your presentations. The presentations you made at the Regional Workshops indicate that there are many fine projects in the works. And speaking of the Regional Workshops, thank you for coming and participating in the activities. It is good for us to see you all again and to see the progress you have made since Glorieta. Betsy and Celia PS Celia has been teaching in Sri Lanka for a week. Sri Lanka is twelve hours ahead of us. She will be back this weekend. I'm going to Jordan on Thursday (only six hours ahead) and like Celia will be teaching Internet skills for collaborative project work. We expect these schools to become part of an international, classroom-to-classroom network. Betsy (and Celia virtually) 1 / 24 / 2000 Good Morning! Thank you all for your participation in the Regional Workshops. We appreciate your willingness to show your work to date and to assess each other's work . The projects are looking quite promising and we think the judges will have a challenging task (pardon the pun!) choosing finalists. The next Important Dates are the Regional Judging. These dates are all on the Challenge Home Page. If you have a conflict, or you need to be judged at a particular time, please send a message to consult . Mike Topliff, Head Judge, is on the consult list and will see your message and do what he can to assist you. Please write this week. If you wait, it will make scheduling more difficult. Janet Clafton, Farmington High School Challenge teacher, has pointed us to http://www.mainfunction.com which has an offer for Visual Studio 6.0 at http://www.mainfunction.com/products/freeoffer.asp Visual Studio 6.0 You can write to Janet at clafj@bird.kchs.k12.nm.us if you'd like more information. Have a great week! Betsy and Celia PS We saw the moon rising on Thursday night on the drive home from Farmington. It was enormous and beautiful. That was the night of the solar eclipse. Why does the moon sometimes look larger than it does at other times? 1 / 17 / 2000 Challenge '99 - '00ers! Hope you all enjoyed your Martin Luther King Day and may his dream and yours come true! We are one half way through the regionals and doing the northern tour this week: Las Vegas, Farmington and Albuquerque. All the regionals have direction links on the Challenge website. Teams going to San Juan and Albuquerque in January, please note that you are going to a different place for the project evaluations than the regionals. The San Juan people go to UNM-Gallup and the Albuquerque go back to UNM, but go to CIRT, 2701 Campus Blvd. Directions will soon be up on the web. We are starting to think about prizes for Awards Day. We need some suggestions for what the runner up teams could receive. Please share any ideas with us! Please consider taking your team's project to another contest, ThinkQuest. Check it out at http://www.thinkquest.org The ThinkQuest Internet Challenge is an international program for students ages 12 through 19 that encourages them to use the Internet to create information-rich Web-based educational tools and materials. Students form teams with their colleagues from around the world and are mentored by teachers or other adult coaches. In the running for scholarships and awards totaling more than $1 million, student participants learn collaboration, leadership and critical thinking skills that help raise their level of education and technological expertise. Awards are handed out across five categories: Arts & Literature, Science & Mathematics, Social Sciences, Sports & Health and Interdisciplinary. Finalists travel to the ThinkQuest Awards Weekend where they compete for the challenge's top prizes. Betsy y Celia PS
1 / 10 / 2000 Good Morning! We are getting packed and ready to head for Portales for the first regional workshop. Be sure to check out the web page under Regionals for maps and text directions on finding the site of the Regional you will be attending. Starting time for the Regionals Workshops is 8:30 AM when registration begins. We'll finish at 2:30 PM. Remember that teams will be making short presentations about their projects. You do not need to be dressed up, but you need to "pretend" you are dressed up! The other teams will write brief comments about the presentations they are watching. There will be a chance, too, for the other teams to ask questions about your project. Scientists will be joining us for lunch which gives you an opportunity to talk about your work with a professional. If you have not filed your interim report, you have received mail from Celia letting you know what to do. Essentially, the report needs to be up in time for your regional. You can bring it to the Regional on disk if you are unsure about uploading. David and Eric will be loading interims from E-Mail all this week while we are on the road. So, we are looking forward to seeing those of you who will be in Portales, Las Cruces, and Socorro this week. Keep up the good work! Betsy and Celia PS. Well, the $10 million dollar offer turned out to be a hoax! The company accepted an offer of $1.2 million. Still not too shabby. Have you checked out e-Bay? They are the ones in the middle of this. So now what conclusions do we draw?! 1 / 3 / 2000 Happy New Year! We are looking forward to seeing your Interim Reports on Friday. Yes, that is THIS Friday, January 7, 2000. We think all the information you need is on the Home Page, but please e-mail us if you need help. And, of course, we are really looking forward to seeing you at this month's Regional Workshops. Be sure to get in touch with us if at the last minute you need to attend a different Regional. Remember, too, that we are looking forward to each team's short (3 minutes) oral presentation to the group. We are looking for a concise description of your project. Try to arrange to practice in front of a friendly group of your friends and concentrate not only on content but on projection, eye contact, hands-out-of-pockets, no gum, etc. Betsy and Celia PS You probably know that if you wish to register a domain name (aol.com, ibm.com, technet.org) you send $75 to an organization that assigns domain names. Of course domain names can be bought - though you probably couldn't talk IBM into selling theirs. However, I heard this morning on NPR (National Public Radio) that someone had registered several years ago a domain name with 2000 in it. They have been offered (are you sitting down?) $10,000,000 for it! What is the moral of THIS story??? 12 / 13 / 99 Good Morning! We are very close to Winter Holidays. We hope that you will have your Interim Report among the papers and projects you complete before the vacation. Again, the deadline is January 7, which is shortly after many of you return to school. Some of you will not be returning until after January 7, so you in particular need to get that Abstract polished off before the break. Last week we received a message asking about the Presentations at the Regionals. What kind of equipment? What software would be available? We will have an overhead projector. There will be a computer to project Power Point files (it will be a PC so if your Power Point show is on a Mac, be sure to save the file to a PC formatted disk). What we are looking for here more than anything else is an articulate statement about what the team is working on. Each team member should have a speaking role, no matter how brief. It is also a chance to practice presenting which is why we urge teams to practice in front of a friendly audience before they come. Hints: hands out of pockets, stand up straight, good eye contact, no gum, etc. Happy Holidays to all our Challenge teams, teachers, mentors and the many friends who support them. Celia and Betsy PS. Now that it is drawing near, what effect do you think Y2K will have? I'm not just thinking about computers and drinking water. Do you expect it to change your your life in significant or subtle ways? 12 / 6 / 99 Good Morning! Thanks so very much to all of you who have sent in your Regional Workshop RSVPs. We are still waiting to hear from some of you. We are getting ready to make handouts, nametags, and order lunches so we need a good count. We will be bringing extra copies of the 98-99 Final Reports to the Regional Workshop for those of you who may need a few more. Remember that the next important deadline is the Interim Report. It is due Friday, January 7, 2000. And a "heads up" for those you anticipating the Workshops: we ask each team to make a 3-5 minute presentation on their project. It is an opportunity not only to explain your work orally, but to practice making a presentation. Each team member should make some part of the presentation - introductions, statement of the problem, work so far, what you expect to accomplish. If you have more than one team at your school, you might present to each other. You may have noticed that sometimes we, Celia and Betsy, write similar messages to you. Well, Technet is undergoing some real expansion and since we work part time, we have moved our computers home and communicate with each other and with you over the Net. We do check voice mail on a regular basis. We hope nothing is falling through the cracks. If you are concerned about reaching us right away, e-mail works very well. One or both of us checks email several times a day. But if you need to use voice mail, Betsy's cell is 505.220.5050. Celia's cell is 505.321.6255 and you can reach her there when she is in town. But friends, email is probably the most reliable. Talk to you next week! Stay warm! Stay tuned and in touch! Betsy and Celia PS Are you following NASA's woes with the Mars Lander? It's a great example of tackling a very tough problem. What do you think about the lander's apparent inablility to communicate? Is the whole mission a disaster? 11 / 29 / 99 Hope your turkey or tofu was moist! Deadlines: Interim reports due January 7th. Check out page 36 of
your handbook on how to submit it electronically. Spelling errors will
cause us to cut off appendages. Regional Workshops: Check out web site for dates! Please let us know
how many of your team is attending by writing to
betsy@nm.net. Many
thanks to those of you have already RSVPd.
Great News: Lovington's teacher sponsor, Pam Gray, has offered to
have her students put together a ten year awards' day video. Thanks,
Pam.
Mentors: If your team still needs a mentor, please let us know.
And that's the report for the week of November 29th!
Betsy y Celia
PS Did you see in the papers that Toy Story 2 is breaking records for
attendance??
11 / 23 / 99 Dear Challengers,
This is a short week and you probably have lots of things you need to
finish up before the turkey goes in the oven.
We'd love it if you could get your RSVP for the Regionals to us this
week. You can check Important Dates from http://www.challenge.nm.org to
find out your dates for Regional Workshops and Regional Judging. We
need to know by December 6, 1999, how many teachers and students are
coming to the Regional Workshop from your school. We need the
information to plan for materials and to get a good lunch count. A big
thanks to those of you who sent in your RSVPs last week. And Del Norte
wins the First-in-Line award for their RSVP!
Remember, too, that January 7, 00, is the date the Interim Reports are
due. Double check your Handbook for details about the Reports.
How are you doing with your mentors? We still have a few teams without
mentors. Please let us know if your team does not have a mentor and
needs one right away. We will find a mentor for you.
And now for something completely different! We have several video tapes
of past Challenges - clips from Awards Days, Regionals, Kickoffs, and
other events. John Jenkins, former Technet Coordinator for the
Challenge, has previewed the videos and selected clips he thinks are
representative of the Challenge Decade. We are looking for a way to get
the clips put together into a smooth video. Does your school have video
lab equipment? If it does, could you find out if someone would like to
take this on as a project? We can find a mentor to help.
And finally, Final Reports. We will be bringing Final Reports for last
year's finalists to the Regionals. We have extras and if you would like
a copy, please let us know.
Enjoy your holiday and Thanksgiving festivities. We are thankful that
you are colleagues of ours. Talk to you next week.
11 / 16 / 99 Challengers!
Last Friday we Met the Press and our Senators and Representatives at
Bernalillo High School. Candace Martinez and her students hosted a
Congressional Briefing for Senators Bingaman and Domenici,
Representatives Wilson and Udall, and national FCC Chair Gloria
Tristiani.. One of Candace's teams, one of Denise Dryzmalski's Cuba
teams, and last year's winners from Albuquerque Academy accompanied by
their teacher, Jim Mims, presented their projects to the delegation.
Denise and Candace discussed the importance of the training programs.
Eric Ovaska demonstrated the speed of parallel processing using a
program to encrypt and decrypt Moby Dick. Three students from
Bernalillo outlined elements of the Challenge. Crystal Martinez
explained what supercompting is and why it is essential for solving
certain kinds of problems. Joseph Moreno introduced his team's mentor,
Jeff Ganley from the Air Force Research Lab and talked about the
importance of a mentor for successful projects. Stephanie Paiz outlined
ten-year Challenge statistics. Terry Boulanger from New Mexico Technet
summarized the Challenge Decade and fielded questions from the
Delegation. We all came away feeling hopeful about continued funding
for the Challenge.
The event was well-organized and ran smoothly and the refreshments were
outstanding. A big thanks to Bernalillo, Cuba, and the Academy for
their roles in making the event a real success.
We are busy finishing up finding mentors for all the teams.
Gina Fisk
(gina@lanl.gov) has offered to help with programming problems. She is a
real expert so be sure to write to her if you need help. And remember,
too, that there is a lot of good material on the Challenge web pages.
If you haven't browsed STUDENTS and HELP, this might be a good time to
do that.
We have introduced many of you to online mentors. How is this working?
Please let us know what is working so we can thank the mentors and if
necessary make some modifications in pairing your team with a particular
mentor.
Be sure to keep an eye on the Important Dates on the Challenge Home
Page. Next Big Dates are December 6. 1999, and January 7, 2000.
January is the month for the Regional Workshops. Please check Important
Dates so that you know when and where your team goes the Workshop. If
you have a conflict with the dates, you need to write to Consult so that
we can find another date for your team. We need to know how many from
your team are attending the workshop so we can prepare sufficient
materials and Enough Lunch! So please RSVP to Betsy Friday, January 7, 2000, is the deadline for the Interim Reports. These
reports describes your project, your progress to date and what you
expect to accomplish. See your handbook for details.
We hope projects are moving along. Remember to celebrate the small
steps!
Til next week...
11 / 8 / 99 Greetings!
We are concurrently in Phases 4 and 5 of the Challenge.
In Phase Four, any school who needs help with computer problems, programming skills or guidance with your project, just needs to ask and a Challenge representative will come to visit and work with your team.
Phase Five is your time to refine your project and to get ready to submit your electronic interim report on January 7th. It is a report that tells about your progress to date and states the expected results of your work. Why are we telling you about this report now?
With the holidays and winter break, you need to get working on project refinement and try to meet this deadline!
If you have team members without a Challenge account, please contact Eric Ovaska at
ovaska@lanl.gov to get that person an account.
The UNM supermentors are working on getting your team a mentor if you do not have one. If you have found a mentor, could you please have them register with us online? Also please let us know that you have a mentor, so we don't continue to search for you.
Think of the Bernalillo and Cuba teams on Friday, November 12th. They are going to participate in a congressional briefing at Bernalillo High School. Both Senator Bingaman and Domenici will be in attendance along with FCC head, Gloria Tristani! We are sharing our 10th annual year with various people throughout the year.
Please remember to use and amuse consult@mode.lanl.k12.nm.us
11 / 1 / 99 Welcome to the rest of the Challenge! We felt that the Kickoff was a
wonderful start to the 10th annual Challenge! All of your abstracts
should be online and your registration fees in. If not, you will be
hearing from us shortly!
All of the abstracts have gone to the SuperMentors to get your team a
mentor, if needed. Please let us know at any time what kind of help
your team needs.
Please look at the important dates on the website and realize when your
interim report is due and when we will be meeting in regions!
Please send us those anecdotal uses of the software Inspiration so we
can share them with the publisher!
We started an advisory board of students and teachers last year and
would like to continue with that entity.
Please write to celia@nm.net, if you would like to volunteer for that
committee. We will meet online and help plan the regionals and Awards
Day!
Please check the news flashes every Tuesday or so for an update of
Challenge events, deadlines, hints, etc.
10 / 20 / 99 Several of you have asked about directions to Glorieta if you are coming
from the South. Travel North on I25, continue past Santa Fe, go past
the turnoff to 285 and Glorieta will be within a few miles.
Our guest Keynote speaker, Mark Henne, has titled his talk "The Making
of a Bug's Life". In the evening his topics will be "Building
Characters for Computer Animation or What I Do for a Living". He
hinted that "Toy Story II" will be coming out soon.
We will be celebrating our 10th Annual Kickoff during the Keynote
Presentations. A few graduates of that class will be on hand. And at
least one of our 10 year teachers will be on hand.
As you may have noticed, the weather is shifting from autumn to late
fall. Glorieta can be cool so come prepared for warm days and cold
nights. Of course, you'll want to watch the weather reports in case it
looks like cold days and cold nights.
If you need to leave the phone number for the Glorieta Conference Center
with family for emergency purposes, it is 505.757.6161.
We are looking forward to seeing you. Remember that Registration for
Session one is from 12-2 on Sunday - but we start workshops right at 2,
so arrive by 1:30 if you can. Registration is from 9-11 on Monday for
Session 2. We'll have the introductory session at 11, so again try to
arrive by 10:30 if you can.
See you next weekend. We are looking forward to an outstanding Kickoff.
10 / 11 / 99 Two weeks from today, we will all be enjoying Mark Henne, from Pixar at
the Kickoff ceremony. We will have had a lovely sit-down luncheon,
celebrating our 10th annual Challenge.
We are working hard on the curriculum tracks, the handbook, and the
details that make everything flow.
Please remember to send in the registration payment asap.
Please remember to contact
consult@mode.lanl.k12.nm.us with any
questions.
10 / 4 / 99 We are getting organized for the Kickoff. Our current numbers are
Please remember to get your registration fees into Technet by October 21st.
Soon there will be a link on the home page for confirmation and abstract info.
9 / 27 / 99 Registration is now closed! We have 36 schools!! 72 teams! 293 participants!
Think we may have a rubric you will have to check off before you leave Glorieta. You will not have to
have this information memorized, but you will need to know where to find it:
Please note that this year, you must pay your $20 registration fee before you come to Glorieta. That fee is
due, October 21, at:
New teams and those who want to practice a Supercomputing project will be able to do a guided, non-
competitive project created this summer by a past Challenge participant, now at Princeton! Ask for more
information from Consult and details will be available at the Kickoff!
9 / 20 / 99 After the Kickoff, we will be sending you a weekly Monday Morning Message!
That message will also be placed here on the webpage in News Flash. Registration is open! Please be working on your abstract to bring to Glorieta! Check out our new mentor page at:
If you need help focusing your project, please contact one of the
supermentors on that page, before you even come to the Kickoff. They will
help you find a suitable project in the area of science you want to pursue. Please note that this year, you must pay your $20 registration fee before
you come to Glorieta. That fee is due, October 21, at:
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New Mexico High School Supercomputing Challenge
Coordinated by Los Alamos National Laboratory and New Mexico Technet
Questions? e-mail: consult