March Accolades

We are sharing Student Accolades from:

High School Robotics >>

High School Quizbowl  >>

Scholastic Art Awards, extended >>

GDS Student Featured >>

High School Robotics

The GDS HS Robotics team took first place at the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) in early March, for the first time!

“The students shined,” reported Matthew Bachiochi, HS Innovation Teacher and Robotics Coach. “When mechanisms on the robot didn't work as expected, they were able to pivot and find ways to be useful in their matches. Huge kudos to our Freshman driver Eli Benveniste, for playing defense with our robot in the final few matches, and kudos to our senior leadership who were able to coach Eli to avoid penalties.”

FRC is a 35-year-old high school robotics program that was created to help promote science and technology. Each January, a new game is introduced, and teams have eight weeks to design and build their robot. Since the game is different each year, teams don’t know what kind of challenges they will have to design for until the build season starts.

This year’s game was called “ReefScape” and is set in a coral reef. Each teams’ robot needed to harvest algae (large, aqua colored kick balls) from the reef, re-seed pieces of coral (foot long pieces of PVC pipe) onto the reef, and climb onto a cage to ascend to the surface. 

The team competed again later in March at Walt Whitman High School, and finished the tournament with the fourth place alliance. After the qualifying rounds, they were picked to go to the double elimination tournament, winning the middle two of four matches. The team was very happy with the final results, and will know if they made the Regional Championship as we head into Spring Break. Currently, they are ranked 32 out of 112 teams; the top 54 teams go to Regionals. 

High School Quizbowl  

On March 15, GDS hosted the History Bee & Bowl Washington, DC Metro Championships. Thirty-three teams from 17 top schools across the DMV participated in the team-based bowl events, and close to 50 students participated in the individual-based bee events.  A hearty congratulations to the 11 GDS students who competed: Ben Hellman '25, Alec Donath '26, Henry Fragale '26, Lomahn Sun '26, Haughton Neppl '27, Ezra Saunders '29, Jake Teitelbaum '30, Max Badel '31, Oliver Elleithee  '31, Paul Bloch-Prime '31, and Hugo Gonen '32.  

The GDS Varsity team (Ben, Alec, Henry, Lomahn, and Haughton) made it to quarterfinals and qualified for the International History Olympiad (“IHO”), which will be held in Paris this July. Individually, Haughton also qualified for finals and the IHO in the History Bee. 

The GDS middle schoolers (Ezra, Jake, Max, Oliver, Paul, and Hugo) placed 3rd in the middle school division thus qualifying for Nationals in Orlando this May. Individually, Ezra also qualified for finals and Nationals in the History Bee.

Way to go, Hoppers!

— Reported by GDS Substitute Teacher and Elementary & Middle School Quizbowl Coach, Randy Sargent Neppl

Scholastic Art Awards

We shared only a partial list of winners of the Scholastic Art Awards in last month’s Accolades. Below is the full list of GDS student winners. 

The Scholastic Art Awards is the nation’s oldest competition that recognizes talented young artists and writers from across the country. The following 41 GDS high school students received recognition for their artistic works this year. Congratulations to all!

Noah Baer '28: Honorable Mention, Photography
Nadia Bandy '27: 2 Gold Keys and 1 Silver Key, Painting
Liam Black '28: Silver Key, Photography
Jacob Blane '28: Honorable Mention, Ceramics and Glass
Henry Cohen '25 Gold and Silver Keys, Photography
Avery Cooper '27: Honorable Mention, Photography
Ethan Farber '26: Honorable Mention, Painting
Elodie Fleurence '25: 2 Gold Keys and Honorable Mention, Ceramics and Glass; 2 Honorable Mentions, Sculpture
Avery Fragale '28: Silver Key, Drawing and Illustration 
Tristan Fulton '26: Silver Key and Honorable mention, Painting
Charlie Haft '27: 2 Honorable Mentions, Drawing and Illustration 
Julia Heinzelman '28: Honorable Mention, Photography
Nina Heyliger '27: Honorable Mention, Ceramics and Glass
Kai von Hindenburg '28: Honorable Mention, Photography
Sabine Hletko Wood '26: Silver Key, Photography
Sophia Ingersoll '28: Honorable Mention, Drawing and Illustration 
Grace Khuzami '26: Honorable Mention, Photography
Carter Kunz '26: Honorable Mention, Photography
Andrew Leopold '26: 2 Silver Keys, Mixed Media and Drawing and Illustration 
Marc Liebowitz '26: Honorable Mention, Photography
Sophie Lim '27: Silver Key, Ceramics and Glass
Ella Maas '28: Gold Key, Photography
Rowan Magnell '27: Silver Key, Painting
EJ Mazo '26: 2 Silver Keys, Honorable Mention, Photography
Zoya Mghenyi '26: Silver Key, Drawing and Illustration
Jibril Nashid '27: Gold Key, Photography
Claire Poellnitz '27: Silver Key, Painting
Jaya Newingham '25: Silver Key and Honorable Mention, Ceramics and Glass
Noah Petty '27: Honorable Mention, Photography
Asa Previna '28: Silver Key, Photography
Abby Quinn-Shores '25: Gold Key and Honorable Mention, Ceramics and Glass
Nate Saelinger '28: Honorable Mention, Ceramics and Glass
Eleanor Schneider '26: Gold Key, Comic Art
Rhys Seiden Malone '28: Silver Key, Photography
Nikki Smallwood '28: Gold Key, Ceramics and Glass
Avery Snyder '26: Honorable Mention, Photography
Daniel Stern '28: Gold and Silver Keys, Photography
Saraswat Swamy '25: Silver Key, Ceramics and Glass
Nathan Tureck '27: Honorable Mention, Photography
Julian Turim '26: Gold Key, Mixed Media
Felix Vogl '28: Gold Key, Photography

GDS Student Featured in Ecology Project International

Kudos to Senior Atticus Coyne who was profiled by the nonprofit Ecology Project International  in their online magazine. Read the feature here.