The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila

The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila

The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila

Otter 841 clings onto a vibrant surfboard in the waters off Santa Cruzs Cowell Beach in June. Many surfers have reported encounters with this otter outlaw, and authorities are still searching for her.

Otter 841: The audacious, surfboard-snatching menace

by Victor Gong, Co-STEM Editor September 26, 2023

As surfers ride the waves in the cool blue waters of Santa Cruz, one omnipresent threat looms over them all — an overly-social, delinquent sea otter. The aquatic outlaw, which local officials call Otter...

Despite changes and improvements, Wi-Fi at Harker is sometimes unreliable and unstable, disconnecting at inconvenient times. These disconnections create disruptions both in and out of the classroom.

What’s happening with Harker Wi-Fi?

by Eva Cheng and Victor Gong September 19, 2023

Wi-Fi: a magical gateway to the Internet, a necessity in everyday tasks, the enabler of everything online. In today’s day and age, web browsing, gaming and video calling all require wifi or internet...

Audience members listen attentively to upper school science department head Anita Chetty during the non-RRI portion of the upper schools annual Synopsys information meeting. Chetty went over Harkers project selection guidelines as well as key dates.

Upper school hosts Synopsys meeting on science fair guidelines

by Andrew Liang and Tiffany Zhu September 10, 2023

Around 80 upper school students attended the Synopsys information meeting in the Nichols Auditorium on Aug. 25 to learn about the application process and guidelines for the science fair.  Upper...

A Tesla parks near the charging stations in Harkers front parking lot. “If even 10% of the cars on the road are EVs, and they arent polluting, that would make a big difference,” Siddhi Jain (12) said.

Biden’s electric vehicle plan: Driving toward a greener future

by Victor Gong and Claire Zhao August 29, 2023

President Joe Biden announced plans on April 10 to transition the U.S. to electric vehicles in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  The “EV Acceleration Challenge” strives...

Transistors: Stem cells of technology

Transistors: Stem cells of technology

by Victor Gong, Co-STEM Editor August 25, 2023

Ever wonder how humans went from the massive computers of the 1940s to the handheld smartphones of the modern era? The answer lies within the transistor. In every electronic device, from cell phones to...

STEM Scene is Harker Aquilas STEM repeater focusing on current developments within the STEM world. This installation features five briefs.

STEM Scene: March 27

by Claire Zhao, Copy Editor March 27, 2023

OpenAI releases new language model GPT-4 Following its predecessor GPT-3.5, OpenAI released GPT-4, the latest language system for ChatGPT, on March 14. GPT-4 is available with a $20 monthly subscription...

Harker alum Rishab Parthasarathy (‘22), along with seven other students, represented the United States at the 19th annual International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) from July 25 to 29, 2022, on the Isle of Man. “Every day is a new experience: meeting new people and being exposed to a really new culture,” Parthasarathy said. “I never knew that the Isle of Man had such a specific and vibrant culture, including multiple dialects of the same language within 20 miles of each other. It was really cool to be exposed to a culture that I hadn’t learned about before [and] see people who think about language.”

Blooming from the STEM: Linguistics leader

by Olivia Xu and Steven Jiang March 24, 2023

How do you conjugate the verb “to give” in Ubykh, a Circassian language that died 30 years ago with the passing of its last native speaker? How do you translate from English to N|uuki, a South African...

WiSTEM Co-President Eileen Ma (12) and STEM Buddies Directors Michelle Wei (11) and Margaret Cartee (11) prepare an oobleck demonstration to teach lower school students about non-Newtonian fluids. The recent STEM Buddies event featured five stations where participants could learn new concepts through hands-on activities and discussions.

WiSTEM brings educational activities to lower school for STEM Buddies event

by Ella Yee, Co-News Editor March 16, 2023

Members of Women in STEM (WiSTEM) hosted STEM Buddies, an event involving hands-on activities and discussions, at the lower school on Feb. 24.  WiSTEM founded the STEM Buddies program in 2014 to spark...

Sheena Vaswani (04) discovered her interest in dentistry as early as high school. “I realized that dentistry was a marriage between my interests, and I didnt necessarily have to give up the artistic side of things,” Vaswani said.

Blooming from the STEM: Artistry in dentistry

by Andrew Liang and Sidak Sanghari March 13, 2023

Like most Harker students, Sheena Vaswani (‘04) is a native of the Bay Area, born and raised in Los Altos. However, after finishing high school, she felt the need to explore outside her bubble. And...

Fiona Yan (11) practices presenting her research project at the mock science fair, which was organized by the Research Club on March 6. Fairs were held virtually from 2020 to 2022 due to the pandemic but have since switched back to in-person.

2023 Synopsys Championship returns to in-person science fair

by Edward Huang, Co-STEM Editor March 13, 2023

Upper school students attended the 2023 Synopsys Science and Technology Championship hosted by the Santa Clara Valley Science & Engineering Fair Association (SCVSEFA) at the San Jose Convention Center...

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