![After placing second in their respective LDEs at the Capital District contest in early November, freshman Jesus Jaramillo-Gallegos and freshman Wyatt Pickett will compete at the Area XII LDE contest in Georgetown on Nov. 23. Jaramillo-Gallegos is competing in Greenhand Spanish Creed Speaking, while Pickett’s LDE is Greenhand Creed Speaking. “Honestly, [I’m excited for] just traveling around, maybe meeting more people,” Jaramillo-Gallegos said. “And [I’m] nervous about probably just not being able to define my weak areas. I feel like I did decent for my first time ever doing this. I just think it’s fun.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Navy-and-Yellow-Simple-Group-Project-Presentation-1200x675.png)
![Holding up T-wolves, the tour group poses for a picture in the Chinese classroom. Sophomore Lydia Ou, junior Phu Trung and senior Yushan Pan gave a tour to Taiwanese diplomat Andrea Yang on Nov. 8. “I was so excited when I heard I would get to give the tour because it’s a big deal,” Ou said. “She’s from the US embassy for Taiwan, so she’s really important. I’m so privileged [to get this opportunity] and I’m so excited.” Photo by Skyler King](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Main-Taiwan.jpg)
![Sitting at a desk past the rows of books laid out for the Book Fair, senior Kimberley Walters assists people in purchasing books and finding titles. The Book Fair is taking place Dec. 16 through Dec. 20, and is an annual event during which students and faculty have the opportunity to go and purchase books and other trinkets in the library. Kimberley said she encourages all to go to the Book Fair, even if they think they don’t like to read. “If you make reading something that is fun for you and you find the things that you like to read, it will never be a chore,” Walters said. “So [the Book Fair is] a good opportunity to find something that will respark your want to read [like] when you were a child and you went to the book fair and you loved the ‘I survived’ books. Maybe you'll find your ‘I survived’ books of your high school experience, and it'll re-spark that kind of love for reading that may have died out.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Addie-L-47-1200x800.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, sophomore Olivia Mahlmeister and seniors Samantha Jameson, Adhit Eswaramoorthi and Justin Khadavi celebrate completing first chamber in the Congress Meet. All four students advanced to the final chamber. “Out of the 20 kids in the final chamber, we had a seventh, ninth, 11th and 13th, and they took the top four to move on to state,” AP US History and Debate teacher Josh Marsh said. “[Even though] we didn't make state this year, all four of them moving on [and] placing is phenomenal.” Photo courtesy of Josh Marsh](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-Regional-Congress-Team.jpg)
![Standing in front of a small audience, senior Kimberley Walters shares a social criticism poem titled “Pity the Nation” by Lawrence Felinghetti. Every month, sponsored by the poetry club, the library hosts a poetry reading. “I never thought I would be interested in [poetry readings] because I’m not the biggest poetry fan,” Walters said. “I think poetry is a very succinct way to express feelings and get a story across. Whereas lots of books have a span of a whole story, but it’s put in a lot of words. The power of poetry is that you can be so succinct within, and there’s a lot of power within the words that are used.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KIM-1200x800.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, Author Ehigbor Okosun, members of Page Turners, and other students reflect on the author's visit. “I thought the visit was great,” Senior Amia De Leon said. “It was interesting talking to her and [getting to know] her process and her thoughts and books in general. But I think the reason it went well [was that] people got to ask questions. I'm glad that she said so much in response to the questions and it wasn't just one and done. [The author’s responses] felt very articulate.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Sebastian-5-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding the Grand Nationals trophies, drum majors Helashi Wijayawardhana, Abigail Pettey and Eddy Kim pose for a photo. The BOA Grand Nationals competition took place in Indianapolis on Nov. 14-17. “My favorite thing was just looking back at the field, and I was like, ‘Oh, crap. I know all of their names, I know who all of them are’,” Wijayawardahana said. “It's just insane to me that I was able to make so many connections. [Being a drum major] taught me how to build relationships with people who I’m not really that similar to, and how to juggle a ton of things all together.”
Photo courtesy of CPHS Band SmugMug](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AJC.GrandNatsFinals-169-1200x801.jpg)
![Delicately placing the string to form the shape of a cornucopia, seniors Haley Burton and Avery Nelson create the November arrangement for the Flower of the Month Club. This club is led by Advanced Floral Design Students and provides a monthly arrangement to community members who subscribe to receive them. “I think flower of the month club is a really impactful way to show your loved ones ‘hey I really care about you,’ or even if they’re just for yourself, they’re a little pick-me-up throughout the month that [say] ‘I’m doing ok, and these flowers make my day a little bit brighter,” Nelson said. “I like giving people flowers because people value the flowers more and they value themselves more.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Ava-Holmes-3-edit.jpg)
![Standing in front of the field at a freshman football game, cheerleader freshman Jacob Gaudreau along with teammate freshman Bella Gibson pose for a photo during halftime of game. “[Cheer has] definitely given me a much more outgoing personality,” Gaudreau said. “I used to be very introverted, so it's definitely made me more extroverted towards people.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ingrid-204-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding a wooden pizza toy, senior Taylor Peterson plays with small children in Bucaramanga, Colombia. During the summer, Peterson traveled to Colombia to help build an elementary school that only had two classrooms but five or six grades with one teacher. “We add[ed] two more classrooms,” Peterson said. “It’s kind of hard when you have two or three grades in one classroom and you only have one teacher. It’s very hard to actually get some beneficial learning. [The extra classrooms will give the students] a better quality of education because they’ll actually have a place specific for their learning.” Photo by Taylor Peterson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Taylor-P.png)
![Sucking in a breath of air, freshman Lily Pope competes in the 200 yard individual medley. On Oct. 25, the swim team competed in the AISD Swim Invitational. Overall, the girls team took second place and the boys team came in eleventh. “My favorite stroke is butterfly because I do the best in that stroke,” Pope said. “I feel like [butterfly] can test how [your ability] to convince yourself to keep going. The hardest part of swimming is convincing yourself to stay strong and keep pushing during a hard race [when] everything is tired.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/POPE-1200x804.jpg)
![Swinging with his arm extended, senior Nolan Park hits the ball smoothly over the net and to the opponent’s side. Park is one of four varsity tennis captains and helped the team win district championships. “Winning district champs was a pretty awesome feeling,” Park said. “We had lost to Liberty Hill a couple of weeks before, but when we played them [again], we came out and really took care of business. We took them out and it was just a really awesome night.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kassidy-419.jpg)
Anticipation fills the room in Belton as they patiently wait for the scores to be revealed on March 21. Robotics team 14361 bursts out into screams and hugs as the realization hit that they had just won the 5A State UIL FTC Competition after months and months of dedication and hard work. The entirety of the team was in shock and couldn’t believe it.
“It felt amazing since we finally saw all of our hard work pay off,” junior hardware member Luyang Chen said. “Every single person on the team was overjoyed. For many, it was probably one of the best moments of the season.”
The competition this year consisted of three main tasks: placing hexagon-shaped pixels on a backboard, hanging the robot in the air and shooting a paper airplane. After six qualification matches, the team made it to state and averaged at a score of approximately 200, which was the high score for 5A UIL.
“This year was even more competitive than usual and the teams that we collaborated with were extremely motivated to be successful,” junior software member Gulin Gurbuz said. “Having to join up with other teams was worrisome at first, but since we did really well in our qualification matches, a lot of other schools wanted to be on our team.”
The team almost qualified for Worlds, which is a competition with the best robotics team from around the globe. They finished as division finalists as the 18th team out of 72. Only the top 12 teams in Texas proceed to Worlds, so while the team is ecstatic about winning 5A UIL State, it was disappointing to not qualify for the next level.
“We were pretty close to qualifying for worlds,” Gurbuz said. “We were in the finals, so if we had won those we would have gone to worlds. I think we were all upset when we realized that we didn’t qualify, but we understand that Texas is one of the hardest states to qualify in, so we will just come back bigger and better next year.”
According to junior business member Adhit Eswaramoorthi, the team has been practicing every day after school for at least three hours for the past three months. After receiving information regarding details on the competition goals, the team has been locked in and focused on making their robot the best possible.
“Honestly, I’ve put in so many hours [that] I’ve lost count,” Gurbuz said. “Over spring break I think I was spending around eight or more hours every day. If I were to estimate, [I have] probably [put in] about 200 hours. We meet every single day, [so] the amount of time that we have dedicated solely to robotics is too much to count.”
Many challenges arose considering this year’s required tasks were more technical than years past. The tight-knit team overcame these hardships by communicating effectively and working together to make necessary changes in a short amount of time. According to Eswaramoorthi, the team had a fast turnover rate that helped their robot adapt to new situations and predicaments.
“The biggest challenge we faced was making our robot more simple,” Gurbuz said. “Our robot was super complicated at first and we weren’t able to implement some parts correctly. We were able to overcome it by simplifying our robot design through pitching new ideas.”
While most of the other robots in the competition were on par with team 14361’s technically, the adaptability that the team’s robot had made all the difference at the state competition.
“If one design didn’t work we didn’t stay stuck on that,” Eswaramoorthi said. “We instantly started brainstorming new ideas we could implement into the next iteration of our robot and so I think our fast design process and commitment to making the robot the best we could really set us apart from the competition.”
Eswaramoorthi said that robotics has taught many members valuable lessons that will stick with them throughout their lives. Projects such as starting up a coding camp in Nigeria, features on local news channels, ice cream socials to promote new members, communicating with other robotics teams all over the world, and assisting a non-profit organization in South America have permanently changed the lives of all the current and future robotics members.
“The outreach that we do with our community really changed me as a person and helped me understand the impact that technology can have on our community,” Eswaramoorthi said. “It’s just like the real world, talking to other people and making those connections is really important. Those connections you make will really pay off in the end.”
According to Gurbuz, almost all of the members of the team were new to robotics this year and picked it up in an instant. To those interested in joining robotics, the accepting community makes it extremely easy to learn, Gurbuz said.
“The number one advice I always give is to not be intimidated,” Chen said. “Competitive robotics is fun for anyone who joins and makes you learn both STEM and teamwork. Our program can teach anyone who is willing or wanting to join.”
