On this week´s edition of The People´s Poll we wanted to know what you're doing for spring break! Click below to vote.

For this week's edition of Speak Up! we interviewed freshman Luke Irwin about the last nine weeks of 2023-24 school year. ¨I mainly look forward to getting the finals out of the way and events such as Access Gators. I have multiple friends that go there and they deserve a lot of support."

Written by Mr. Joe Gafford

Most of Quiz Bowl competitions throughout the year are invitational tournaments that do not officially count towards our record, however, at these invitational tournaments we get to play against some tough competition and against schools of lots of different sizes. We have done pretty well at our invitational tournaments; we got second at the Little Rock Central Invitational Tournament and Third at an invitational in Morrilton. Their big accomplishment this year was winning the 4A Regional Tournament. Now we are headed to the 4A State Tournament on April 13th. This is CAC's first time winning our regional tournament in many years (I restarted the Quiz Bowl Team in the fall of 2018). We got Second Place in our Regional Tournament a couple of years ago and had the opportunity to go to state, but this is the first time we got first.

Quiz Bowl is basically trivia and the categories range from English, history, geography, math, science, sports, art, music, and pop culture. Students compete five on five answering different questions to score points.

This year they have had fourteen students compete at tournaments: Caroline Connor, David Webster, Aidan Stair, Kate Tuxhorn, Halle Browning, Sydney Dare, Emma Davis, Connor Mann, Emmy Marshall, Maddie Philips, Sam Schimmel, Austin Edwards, Jack Landis, and Cooper Ashberry.

Quiz Bowl usually offers a couple 45 minute practices a week, one before school and one during 8th period. In practice they read through question packets and students will buzz in if they know the answer. Lots of the same content comes up time and time again and most of the academic content is picked up in their classes. Congratulations to Quiz Bowl.

PP: How do robotics competitions work?

MH: We competed in a FIRST Robotics Competition which is a national competition. Each year a certain game is released in January and teams have about two months to create a robot that accomplishes the tasks outlined by FIRST.

This year the game theme was CRESCENDO. There are several things your robot can do to score points in the game, so teams must decide what strategy they want to employ and what they want their robot to focus on in the match. This year the robots had to shoot rings up into two different types of openings and be able to lift themselves off the ground by hooking onto a chain on the playing field. FIRST robotics competitions have a qualifying stage and an alliance stage. In each qualifying match three teams’ robots team up against three other robots to score points. Your team can score in several ways. At the beginning of the match robots are autonomous, meaning they use preprogrammed code to operate on their own. Our robot was able to shoot a ring and drive forward during this time. The remainder of the match a student drives the robot. Teams play offense, defense, and strategize together to score as many points as possible. 

PP: How do you prepare for one?

MH: You have a short time period to create your robot, so you have to build and prototype various ideas quickly to see what works and what doesn’t work. Different subteams within our robotics team took on various roles from construction, to electrical, to programming, among other things. 

PP: What did you place?

MH: We went 2-9 in the qualifying stage, but we faced some quality opponents and performed quite well for a first year team! In the qualifying matches we actually faced an alliance of three teams that were better than the three teams that ultimately won our regional. 

PP: What awards did you receive?

MH: We received the Rookie Inspiration Award which is given to a team who advances respect and appreciation for engineering in their school and community.

PP: What was the robot made of?

MH: We used metal, belts, wood, wheels, and polycarbonate sheets to create the drive train and launching frame for our robot. On top of that were 7 motors: four to drive the robot, two to spin the wheels that launched the rings, and 1 to help our robot lift off the ground at the end of each match. The robot ultimately weights just over 80 pounds and runs on a battery. They’re quite powerful! The motors are all wired to a power distribution hub (like your at-home circuit breaker box) and a radio that sends signal from the robot to a computer that controls the robot’s movements.

This past week, our Jr. High and Sr. High band competed at the Region Concert Assessment. Jr High band received a 2 in performance and 1 in sight reading, and Sr. High band receiving 1s across the board making them STATE BOUND! 

The Jr. High Women's Choir on Monday received all 1 ratings, and the Sr. High Choir qualified for State as well.

Chateau 

Definition: a feudal castle or fortress in France; a large country house: mansion; a French vineyard estate.

Example: During spring break, we're staying in a Chateau.

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