I’m excited to introduce a new group of students for second semester. We have a very diverse group of students whose interests include business, engineering, programming, and robotics. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know a couple of these students this year because one of them (Gati Aher) is the CAD design leader of the Robotics Club (http://www.bhsrobotix.com), as well as the lead of the BHS Programming Club which I have been advising this school year. To be honest, I’ve learned more about programming from Gati than she has learned from me this year. Also, Shirin Bakre is the engineering lead of the BHS Robotics Club, and has been an “honorary member” of Help Desk who has taught us about robotics and tried out some of our fun Sphero Star Wars robots at the Help Desk. I’m thrilled to have them in class as well as these other outstanding students this semester. Enjoy reading their bios.
Hi, my name is Gati Aher, and I am a junior at Burlington High School. I joined the HelpDesk field study to work on the Programming Club syllabus, explore technology, and learn how to troubleshoot. I also want to help people with their technology issues because I enjoy being a helpful person. I have a strong interest in computer science and robot design, and I want to go into a career involving artificial intelligence, robotics, and making technology that makes the world a better place. My goals for the future are doing well in a MIT run Ai contest, BattleCode, and researching path finding, swarm behavior, and heuristic algorithms. Additionally, I have taught myself Java and Python, taken a class for C++, and I am the leader of Programming club, co-lead of Math League, and the CAD (Computer Aid Design) lead for the Red Devils robotics team. My other interests are art, music, science, and running, as I have taken both art and band electives at BHS, won two collab awards my sophomore year, play the piano, clarinet, bass clarinet, and oboe, taught myself chemistry my freshman year, and run cross country in the fall. I look forward to learning more and helping people in HelpDesk.
Shirin Bakre
I am currently a Senior in the graduating class of 2018. I find myself interested in robotics, and I am currently the engineering lead of our high school team the Burlington Devilbotz. It is a whole lot of fun to innovate, design, and build complex robots to complete challenges given to them. I decided to join help desk to become better acquainted with computer science. I was not really a fan of the software aspect of engineering for a long time, in fact, I spent most of my career in engineering within the mechanical and electrical fields. But I believe it is important to bring balance and learn different aspects of engineering. I want to expand my understanding, and help desk is very good at helping students learn that. In the future, I hope to pursue a career in Biomedical Engineering. I have always had an interest in the biology and chemistry fields, and robotics has been a great gateway for me into the engineering field. I am glad to be a part of the help desk and learn more about technology and how it is a part of our world. It is constantly progressing and making impacts on the world.
Hello, my name is Frankie Bonanno. I am currently a senior here at Burlington High School. I am one of the captains for the hockey team. I am also apart of the DECA club at BHS where my role is being a leader in the club. I work for the school store and go buy the candy and drinks for the store. I decided to join the help desk because our school each year is getting more and more technologically advanced. Which is useful but there are some problems students or faculty may run into and I want to be apart of helping them. In college, I plan on majoring in communications or business management. Later on in life, I want to either do something with marketing or communications. I also enjoy spending time with my friends and family. My favorite thing to do in my spare time is either play fortnite or hang with friends.
Hi, my name is Gabi Canales, and I am a sophomore in the help desk. I was interested in being part of the help desk because I like computers. Mostly all I do is watch YouTube videos and vines. I think it’s really cool and fun. I also enjoy to play soccer and basketball, which are my favorite sports. Some different careers that I’m interested in are electrical engineering, and architecture. I like engineering because both of my parents are engineers. Also, a lot of my family work in construction so I have grown up around things that had to do with architecture. Overall, I’m just really excited to be able to a part of the help desk this year.
Hello, my name is Patrick Hayes. I am currently a junior at BHS. I joined help desk to try and learn more about technology. I am not very technologically savvy and I really want that to change. In an age where technology is such an important factor in our world, I feel it is important to be familiar with it. I believe help desk awards me that opportunity. After high school, my career choice is still ambiguous. I feel as though I will end up in the business field like my parents. While in high school, I play on the varsity hockey and lacrosse teams. I love sports and the competition within them. Competition is always relevant in life and sports really encourages me to work hard and fair in everything I do. Other than sports, I am a member of student council and participate in many clubs. I am thrilled to get the opportunity to help other students around BHS while in help desk.
My name is Quinlan Hogan and I am a senior at Burlington High School. I have decided to join Help Desk to learn more about technology and especially computers. I have a background with building computers and some different programs like, C++, Java, and basic JavaScript. Technology has always been apart of my life in a way. Technology has always made everything easier for me. I am excited to help students and teachers with issues and problems throughout the year. I feel as though Help Desk is a good way to improve my troubleshooting skills. As a student learning programming, any type of figuring out and solving problems would improve me. I have always had different ideas for pursuing a career. I have made up my mind to become a HVAC/R Technician, eventually wanting to own my own business or become a Tech Rep. Joining Help Desk could also help with my social traits learning how to lead people in the right direction or fix a problem for them just like a Technician. Outside of school I work on cars, trucks, bikes, go karts, basically anything that uses an engine.
Hi, whoever is reading this I am Cohan Houniet I am a senior at Burlington High school. I am interested in the help desk because I want to advance my skills with technology this semester and I want to help out kids in my classroom if there is anything to be done. This would help me out in college as there will be different technology related software, that I would not know how to do and with this basic skill I can improve in that area. I am excited to learn more about computers and how they are assembled. This would benefit me as I am going into pharmaceutical and majoring in chemical engineering as it would help me out because the world is progressing and uses technology more often.
Hello, my name is Alison Illidge. I am currently a freshman at Burlington High School. Some of my interests are skiing and also snowboarding. I love to race on skis, I used to race for a group called NASTAR, which is the largest public ski race group in the world. Now I am currently part of a small freestyle snowboarding group called Gunstock Freestyle Academy and I love riding and learning with this group. I decided to join help desk because I don’t know that much about technology and I would like to learn more about it. Especially with the new chromebooks we got this year. This will also help me in my future because now most jobs require the use of technology. While learning more about technology I would also like to help others learn about technology as well to I can help them out if they need it. So far I don’t really know where I want to go career-wise yet, but I hope to find out soon and work really had to get to where I want to go. Some more interesting things about me are that I was part of the BHS Girls Cross Country team.
My name is Owen Johnson, and I am a senior at Burlington High School. This is my first year in help desk, and I joined because I enjoy working with technology and look forward to learning more about it. I am interested in learning about drones, and when I heard the help desk bought one I decided I would join. I want to go to college to become a mechanical engineer, and eventually use my degree to work with cars and the technology with them. One of my biggest passions is music. I have been playing guitar since 6th grade, and I am always listening to music whether it’s in the car or walking to class. When I’m not at school, I spend my time working at the Tuscan Kitchen or hanging out with friends. During the winter and spring I am a part of a FIRST robotics team. I work with my teammates to design and build a robot which we use to compete against other high schoolers around the world. As a part of help desk, I am looking forward to learning more about technology and the way we use it here at BHS, and to help others with their technological needs.
Marvin Jean Baptiste
(Marvin was a late addition to our class, and we will have his bio up very soon)
Hello, my name is Uzair Khalifa. I am a senior at Burlington High School and I wanted to join the help desk because I have an interest in modern technology. I joined help desk because many people have problems with technology and I want to help them with these issues. I intend to further my education with a major in Business Administration with a concentration in Management Information Systems and also major in Neuropsychology.
Hi, my name is Angie Melin. I am a freshman at Burlington High School.I am very interested in technology and how it all works. Overall I find technology extremely important for everybody to know, given It is reforming society. I joined the help desk because our school relies on technology. Not knowing how to use it properly is a huge disadvantage. Also, I want to be able to help people fix their devices (whatever those may be) whether inside of school or outside. For my career, even though ‘i’m young, I’m pretty set on becoming a teacher. Since technology is growing do vastly, by the time I’m an adult, I’m sure schools will be extremely tech-savvy. Something to know about me is I’m on JV soccer and varsity track and field. I’m apart of the Pals club and the Italian club. Also, I volunteer to coach U-6 (5 and 6 year old) soccer players for the town. My family and I also foster dogs in our free time.
Hello, my name is Tej Patel. I am in my final year at Burlington High School. I am interested in technology because it makes daily life easier. Connecting with friends, playing video games, watching YouTube, or doing research would not be nearly as easy as it is without technology. I decided to join Help Desk because I think it will teach me how to problem solve small problems that would otherwise cost a lot of money. Later in life, my biggest interests are owning hotels and motels, day trading stocks, and investing in real-estate. Also, I have a big interest in cars which relates to technology because of how much technology is needed to make them run as well as they do today.
My name is Anthony Russo, and I am 18 years old. I am a senior at Burlington High School class of ‘18. I am interested in technology and the cool things it can do. Drones are cool, and self-driving cars sound great. I decided to join the help desk, because I’m good at fixing problems people have with their devices, and want to become better. For a career, I would like to do something in business, most likely marketing. Currently, I am a lifeguard in the summer, and a maintenance worker otherwise. I will be attending Merrimack College next year, majoring in business management. I love cannolis, and chocolate covered pretzels. I have a football that was signed by Stephen Curry. My friends often call me by my nickname, “Finley”. My second cousin, Felicio lives in Madagascar. I’m a savage when it comes to Fortnite, and I’ll cook anyone in 2k.
I would like to spend my time editing and producing my film documentary on the boys varsity hockey team (teacher’s note: Kat also produced a video for the hockey team’s banquet). If I finish early, I may begin a new film with a different focus group and main plot. I have been considering doing team features on the Burlington spring sports teams, or maybe doing an individual documentary on one person to make it personalized and appealing to an audience. By doing an internship during the school day instead of attending my normal classes, I will have the opportunity to get help all day from both Mr. Wong and the workers in BCAT whereas now I only have the opportunity to do so during my designated class period and after school hours. In college, I am planning on majoring in creative film and media, and I feel as though this is a great learning opportunity and an even better hands on experience to get some knowledge on film editing and how to produce a good film.
I am proposing that my work as an intern with Mr. Wong, teacher at the Burlington High School Help Desk, will help me develop and gain more knowledge about music recording and production and help me in any upcoming projects that are music related. Some of the tasks to be completed with Mr. Wong include learning how to play the guitar, recording music, production of music and many more. With very little knowledge and support, I have always had interest in doing digital music production and recording and when I saw a chance like this come my way, I could not let it pass me.
My internship project involves landscape building within video games, as well as object manipulation and custom NPC generation. I specifically will be working in the video game “The Elder Scrolls Skyrim”. Skyrim gives me the utilities to use to do all this, called the Creation Kit which lets me add, edit or remove anything inside of the game, which includes adding completely new material. It is the same program that their game developers used to create the rich open world video game that I love so much.
Computer science has always fascinated me for the simple reason that mastery requires both creativity and problem-solving skills. No single method is correct, and previously-used methods can always be improved upon. I have taken C++ as well as AP Java in our high school. This past summer, I had the opportunity to work in a Graduate research laboratory at Northeastern University, and learned MatLab and have coded and developed algorithms to aid research involving vibration theory. In college, I plan to pursue a Computer science degree in conjunction with an engineering degree.
Hello! I’m Dev Soni and I’m a senior at Burlington High School. I have spent the past few years here being heavily interested in a variety of classes while specializing in mostly sciences. In my personal time, I am a highly dedicated gymnast and tennis player on my own time and during the seasons. As my hobby, over the years I have developed a keen interest in game design. Starting from my early years of playing Nintendo 64 Mario with my uncle to today where I have a vast collection of games in my Steam library.