![“[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)
STEM Spotlight: HarkerDEV
“STEM Spotlight” is a new Aquila repeater showcasing STEM clubs and their initiatives.
September 26, 2021
STEM Spotlight is a repeater exploring what clubs at Harker have been doing as they return to campus. This week’s featured club is HarkerDEV, which creates new software and applications that help the Harker community.
HarkerDev, the Harker School’s official student software development organization, was founded in 2016 by Neeraj Aggarwall (’18), David Melisso (’19), Rithvik Panchapakesan (’19), Joel Manning (’19) and Ryan Adolf (’19) for a coding challenge sponsored by the upper school administration to create a planner website for the school. The team won with their website planner.harker.org and has since released nine different projects since its inception in 2016, including the Bell Schedule and Harker Pay.
Led by adviser Dr. Eric Nelson, upper school computer science department chair, the organization is dedicated to making Harker student and faculty life easier through software development. The club is run by two administrators, who set up meetings and general timelines for projects and represent the club when talking with school administration and Information Technology (IT) staff, and nine active members who work on the projects assigned to them by the two administrators.
“Right now, we’re mainly focused on setting up our apps for the new year,” Gloria Zhu (12), a HarkerDev administrator, said. “For example, we’re getting the college counseling drop-ins app ready to go for the class of 2022 and adding the new class secretaries to the announcements app so they can manage class meetings.”
In the past year, HarkerDev updated its Bell Schedule to accommodate online classes, adding an alarm to notify students when classes started. The app can be customized based on a student’s class schedule and includes the lunch menu for every day.
“[Bell schedule] has helped me know the schedule every day, which is quite important for knowing when my classes are and going to them at the correct times during the day,” Kailash Ranganathan (12) said.
The HarkerDev staff have also taken advantage of the time away from campus to develop a variety of new projects, including an app for drop-in college counseling. The College Counseling Drop-In app, or CoCo for short, is slated to release in September this year, along with a Bus Schedule app that allows students to check daily Harker bus routes and pickup times.
“One part of HarkerDev is [that] we have an amazing team,” Kabir Ramzan (10), a HarkerDev member, said.“We have lots of members who all share that same passion of creating applications to help the community, so we’re able to work together to make that impact. As a result, we can maintain a lot of different complex applications simultaneously just because we have the people to do that.”
All of HarkerDev’s projects can be found at dev.harker.org. Recruitment for the club will be announced at the start of second semester, and students interested in joining the club can email [email protected] if they have any questions.
