3rd Annual March Madness Success

This year at the 2016 March Madness Symposium, parents, students and teachers were treated to a night of innovative projects of all varieties by the 10th graders. The class of 2018 spent the past 9 months planning their individual projects, from start to finish. We started in September, brainstorming potential realms of expertise that inspired us, ranging from technology and cosmetics to economics and feminism. By January, everyone had their specific project in mind, as well as a plan on how they would use their time in March to take their specialty as far as they could. When March rolled around, we had two weeks of minimal classes dedicated to becoming a true expert in our field. Now that March Madness has come to a close, we saw many amazing projects, and we wanted to ask some of the tenth graders about their inspiration and experience with their projects.

Naomi Talbott wrote a book, website, and presentation on micro-expressions and body language. Naomi was inspired by this subject because she has always been interested in learning the detection and science of body language for young adults, as she said, “The book was written for young adults in three parts: nonverbal communication in a relationship, communication while lying, and communication in defending one’s self.” Naomi expressed her opinion on her classmates work, “I was really surprised and in awe over the passion that was put in our grades projects. It was nice to see what people like to do.”

Ben Usher, who transformed a drone to measure windspeed and direction for sailing purposes said, “March Madness was a time to pursue your interests that you would not otherwise be able to pursue. The two weeks of limited classes gave me an unlimited amount of resources.”

Laurent Brodie created an encyclopedia of monsters inspired from fictional horror stories. He explained that March Madness allowed him “to get around to doing something that I’ve always wanted to do for sometime. It allowed me to showcase my creativity. I think March Madness went very well and I am very proud.”

Andres Perez, redesigned a building on 34th street, “My dad was an architect and that is where I got my inspiration from. I definitely want to pursue architecture when I am older. I tried to do a model of my design, but it was significantly difficult so instead I 3D printed it.”

Jack Posner created a documentary on his grandfather and their relationship. “I knew my subject prior to starting March Madness, but I was not sure the medium I wanted to pursue.” When asked what could be improved about March Madness he responded by saying, “Our grade had some beautiful pieces but in general we need to learn how to manage time so we can get the extent of our potential reached.”

This year’s March Madness was a huge success. We cannot wait to see the next wave of amazing projects to come next year Who knows what we will see!