Pokemon – A discussion with Dr. Ken Perlin

Some background for those less experienced: The concept of the Pokémon universe, in both the video games and the general fictional world of Pokémon, stems from the hobby of insect collecting, a popular pastime which Pokémon executive director Satoshi Tajiri-Oniwa enjoyed as a child. Players of the games are designated as Pokémon Trainers, and the two general goals (in most Pokémon games) for such Trainers are: to complete the Pokédex by collecting all of the available Pokémon species found in the fictional region where that game takes place; and to train a team of powerful Pokémon from those they have caught to compete against teams owned by other Trainers, and eventually become the strongest Trainer: the Pokémon Master. - Wikipedia.org

Today, Friday May 25th, we are fortunate to have a distinguished guest at Western for the morning through lunch. Dr. Ken Perlin is an internationally recognized game development expert and university professor who has won an Academy Award for his accomplishments (see below). 

He'll be spending Friday morning working with a group of students on an inventive Pokemon tournament in the IDEA Space.  During lunch, Ken will be available to meet with interested staff and students in Room 387, so feel free to drop by if you would like.

And thanks to Kaelan Myerscough for helping to organize this.

Play on!

                

Dr. Ken Perlin is a Professor at New York University, an Academy Award-winning inventor (for Tron), a SIGGRAPH Lifetime Achievement Award winner for computer animation, and was the Keynote Speaker at SIGGRAPH Asia this year. He is also Director of the Games for Learning Institute at NYU. Ken is widely recognized for his many achievements, and a sought-after international speaker.  He agreed to volunteer at Western because of his great respect for WTCS student Kaelan Myerscough’s contribution to the Games for Learning Institute.   Check out the following links.

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/

http://blog.kenperlin.com/

Newton, Cavendish, ... now Quach

As part of the grade 11 Dynamics Unit, Steven Quach created a replica of the Cavendish experiment for determining the universal gravitational constant in which Henry Cavendish (1731-1810), an English physicist, experimentally determined the constant, G, more than a century after Newton predicted it mathematically. This individual student project was not part of the culminating activity or the final exam (worth 30% of their overall mark).

Steven was the first one to present, setting the bar high!

Way to go Steven!

Western Greens

Our Green Industries course is in it's infancy but has made great strides this first year. The horticultural component has given us the opportunity to expand the vegetable garden and reap the bounty over the summer and fall.

"There are many areas on our property that could use beautification" declared Mr. Pegg (lead teacher for the new program). "There are enough flowers, plugs prepared by our students and ready for delivery next week, to make a significant impact."  Staff, students and the community will be encouraged to join us.

Student Success Tea

A ceremony was recently held in the library to celebrate students nominated by staff for outstanding growth in character and/or citizenship, enabling them to become role models and provide leadership within the school community. Congratulations to all those nominated.

Hot Off The Press

Our Design and Technology program has two new pieces of equipment with which the students experiment. A clam heat press is used to transfer original student designs onto T-shirts.

And we have integrated a 3-D printer into the program. It utilizes plastic filaments to fabricate student designs in 3-D. In the Exploring Technologies - Robotics program, students are printing their 3-D key chain designed using Creo Elements Pro Engineer 5.

Art Works - update

Annie Zeng's book cover won second place in the competition to design a cover for Art Works, a textbook for grades 9 and 10 students in Ontario, published by Emond Montgomery Publications. 

Each student in the second-place winner's class receives a gift card to a local art supply shop. In addition, Annie will receive a poster of her submission. And finally, her classroom teacher will receive a copy of the Art Works Teacher's Resource.

Yay Annie!!

On May 11 the Grade 12 Leadership class will be running a Grade 6 Leadership Conference for five of our elementary feeder schools.  Our students are preparing a series of interactive and reflective workshops and activities that elementary school student leaders will complete in the one day conference.  Participants will be encouraged to take what they learn back to their elementary student councils and leadership programs.  A big thank you to Andrew Cooper one of our grade 11 leadership/cyber arts students who designed the conference t-shirt. The two images below are other pieces of work that Andrew created for the school Agenda and our Halloween Carnival.

Art and the Environment

For the month of April students in grade 11 leadership, who have background in our various art and design programs, have been assisting with Artists in the Classroom at Annette Street Public School.  W.T.C.S. leaders worked with groups of grade 7 students to design various life forms for the schools Ghost River Project. 

On April 26^th  Students received Environmental Leadership Training from the TREC organization in preparation for the World Youth Environmental Conference held at the Brick Works Environmental Centre on May 16th for grade 6 students from across the T.D.S.B.  This is the fourth year our leadership students will be running workshops, activity centres and act ambassadors for over 700 grade 6 students and their teachers.

Leadership Program at Ryerson University

On March 1^th 2012 students in the grade 12 leadership class received training from the OFFSA Official Training Department to prepare for the hosting of the Ontario Girls Volleyball OFFSA Finals held at Ryerson University on March 5 and 6^th.  W.T.C.S. students acted as team assistants on court officials and  judges, score keepers and guides.  Students not only put their developing leadership skills into practice but had a taste of what university life is like.  Students met with university staff members and graduates of W.T.C.S.  The feedback from the hosting officials and visiting teams was overwhelmingly positive and the professional, focused friendly manner of our students was strongly noted.

Wise Law

Grade 11 Law students visited the Superior Court of Ontario and Osgoode Hall, with Ms. Brett, on April 24, 2012. We were able to observe courtroom procedures, meet with a judge, and hear testimony given in a murder trial. We took a short tour of Osgoode Hall and its impressive Law library

Holocaust Centre and the Art of Samuel Bak

Grade 10 History and Grade 11 Genocide Studies students visited the Columbus Centre and the Holocaust Centre on April 27 accompanied by Ms. Brett and Ms. Tager. The Columbus Centre hosted an exhibit of the art of Holocaust survivor Samuel Bak.  

At the Holocaust Centre students met with Simon Saks who shared with us his experiences during the Holocaust. Both Mr. Bak and Mr. Saks were eight-year-old boys when WWII started. Students were fortunate to be able to hear about this terrible time in history from an actual eye-witness.