Student Standouts for February 17, 2023

15 Students Selected for Foundry High School Show

Fifteen MICDS Upper School artists have been selected to have their work featured at the inaugural 2023 Foundry Art Centre High School Student Exhibition. High school students in the St. Charles and St. Louis area were eligible to participate. The works selected for the exhibition were “juried based on skill, decision making, innovation, and personal expression.”

Congratulations to the artists in the classes of Upper School Arts Teachers Brooke Williams and Denise Douglas, and check out their masterpieces below!

• Kate Hunter ’25 – Self Portrait
• Mae Scott ’25 – Trees
• Hale Foster ’25 – Ghost
• Taaj Saddler ’25 – Street Lights and Cars
• Wayne Webster ’23 – Teapot
• Amir Muhammad ’24 – New Era
• Ella Etherington ’24 – City Hall
• Elise Toombs ’26 – Karpeles Manuscript Museum
• Ana Chu ’24 – Balloon Dog
• Abby Wyckoff ’24 – Beauty Blemishes
• Hala Nazzal ’24 – Honey
• Thomas Leatherman ’24 – Melting
• Walter Lindsey ’24 – Untitled
• Mason Swartz ’24 – Tragedy

There is an opening reception on Friday, March 3 from 5 to 8 p.m. Awards will also be announced at 6:30 p.m.

Upper School Robotics Teams Recap Season

By Ramifications Team Members:

On Ramifications, we are all so proud of what we have done over the last several months. From team dinners to tough problem-solving, to long nights of troubleshooting, we have had such a fulfilling time becoming friends and finding a community. Our team has learned so much throughout this season, and each of us has found a very accepting team of amazing people. Our coach, Mr. Travis Menghini, has been incredibly supportive and is a great mentor for all of us. He has led us through wins and losses and has allowed us to adapt and grow in our roles on the team. Our teammates have learned new skills and honed their abilities in design, engineering, and gracious professionalism. We are strongly looking forward to our future, as we will continue to use what we have learned and have new and valuable experiences.

By Rampire Team Members:

We started our year by rebranding our team: we are now Rampire (Ram + Empire), a co-ed team dedicated to supporting, encouraging, and inspiring underrepresented groups in STEM. During the season, our team found both failures and successes. Each meet, the troubles that we encountered taught us ways to improve. After the first meet, we enhanced our autonomous program by using object detection software, which is like face ID but for images, something new to our team. Right before the second meet, many experienced senior members were out of town, so our junior members had the opportunity to step up and take initiative, creating a different and mostly-successful intake system design. This design is the one we continued with. By Qualifiers, our robot was strong in all aspects of the game, and we finished 12^th  out of 26^th in our league, moving up 10 places. We won the Motivate Award at the qualifier meet: an award given to “a team who makes a collective effort to make FIRST known throughout their school and community and sparks others to embrace the culture of FIRST.” We earned this for promoting our personal mission and FIRST’s mission through our fourth-grade MICDS coding event and the event at Wyland Elementary. Post-season, we plan to continue working with Wyland Elementary School by starting a FIRST Inspire team and offering mentorship. Additionally, we intend to finish our second book: a choose-your-own-adventure story starring Tobie, the run-down robot.