![“[Building nerf blasters] became this outlet of creativity for me that hasn't been matched by anything else. The process [of] making a build complete to your desire is such a painstakingly difficult process, but I've had to learn from [the skills needed from] soldering to proper painting. There's so many different options for everything, if you think about it, it exists. The best part is [that] if it doesn't exist, you can build it yourself," Ishaan Parate said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/DSC_8149-900x604.jpg)
![“When I came into high school, I was ready to be a follower. But DECA was a game changer for me. It helped me overcome my fear of public speaking, and it's played such a major role in who I've become today. To be able to successfully lead a chapter of 150 students, an officer team and be one of the upperclassmen I once really admired is something I'm [really] proud of,” Anvitha Tummala ('21) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screen-Shot-2021-07-25-at-9.50.05-AM-900x594.png)
![“I think getting up in the morning and having a sense of purpose [is exciting]. I think without a certain amount of drive, life is kind of obsolete and mundane, and I think having that every single day is what makes each day unique and kind of makes life exciting,” Neymika Jain (12) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Screen-Shot-2017-06-03-at-4.54.16-PM.png)
![“My slogan is ‘slow feet, don’t eat, and I’m hungry.’ You need to run fast to get where you are–you aren't going to get those championships if you aren't fast,” Angel Cervantes (12) said. “I want to do well in school on my tests and in track and win championships for my team. I live by that, [and] I can do that anywhere: in the classroom or on the field.”](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DSC5146-900x601.jpg)
![“[Volleyball has] taught me how to fall correctly, and another thing it taught is that you don’t have to be the best at something to be good at it. If you just hit the ball in a smart way, then it still scores points and you’re good at it. You could be a background player and still make a much bigger impact on the team than you would think,” Anya Gert (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AnnaGert_JinTuan_HoHPhotoEdited-600x900.jpeg)
![“I'm not nearly there yet, but [my confidence has] definitely been getting better since I was pretty shy and timid coming into Harker my freshman year. I know that there's a lot of people that are really confident in what they do, and I really admire them. Everyone's so driven and that has really pushed me to kind of try to find my own place in high school and be more confident,” Alyssa Huang (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AlyssaHuang_EmilyChen_HoHPhoto-900x749.jpeg)
Harker Pay facilitates student purchases in upper school campus
The current Harker Pay interface. A group of juniors developed the program and inaugurated its use this school year.
May 3, 2018
A group of students established Harker Pay at the upper school community, enabling students to purchase items online using their phones. With a quick log-in process and confirmation, students are able to buy snacks and club items without having to use punch cards.
Student council, ASB and club week members run Harker Pay through office hours and lunch. Harker Pay is also used for purchases at sports games in the athletic center.
“I think it is very convenient to use Harker Pay in case you forget your money or your punch card because it’s right on your phone,” Rhea Nanavati (9) said. “It’s always there for you to use, and it’s not difficult because you don’t have to sign up for anything in advance.”
The upper school community has taken great notice of the benefits of Harker Pay, so we ask ourselves: who are the creators behind this diligent system? Juniors Ryan Adolf, David Melisso, Rithvik Panchapakesan and Neil Ramaswamy spent the last four to five months developing Harker Pay, constantly reforming the link and updating students about its release at school meetings.
The team first generated the idea in November when they noticed that charges using the paper-based system could be untrustworthy and inefficient as Assistant to Dean of Students Amy Hauck’s had to manually input the transactions on the sheet into a spreadsheet.
“The paper system just had a lot of flaws in the sense that students were charging other students for items, so it was like forgery,” Neil said. “Parents also wanted to be able to control how much their kids were spending, which is a functionality that we have but that will be released next year.”
Not only did the team want Harker Pay to limit falsification of students’ signatures and unreadable handwriting, they wanted to make sure that students could easily access the link without troubles.
“Our top three goals were security, efficiency and our third goal was that we just wanted it to be really easy to use for everyone,” Rithvik said. “Since it was a new system, and there was always a drawback for people who learned how to use it, we wanted to make it as simple as we possibly could which is why when you log-in, there’s nothing else for you to do. You just scan it and you are guided through the entire process.”
Over the summer, the founders plan to congregate to make Harker Pay less manual and more automatic.
“Right now, the system isn’t newly automated,” Rithvik said. “We do have it so that you get sent a vendor link to sell for a club right before your event starts and the vendor link gets disabled right as your club ends. But, we want to be able to automatically generate spreadsheets right after your club finishes selling and send it to the administration. Right now we have to run the command. We want to completely automate everything even more to further extend the system.”
