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Maharishi School Students Win State Robotics Competition


robot-teamA team of six Maharishi School students recently won the Iowa robotics championship, competing against 17 other teams from across Iowa and including three out-of-state teams from Illinois and Los Angeles.

The team will now be getting ready for the 2010 World Championships in Atlanta, Georgia, in April.

The competition, part of a nationwide program for students, entailed seeing whose robot would perform best in a ball-tossing game called HotShot.

The students are members of the new Maharishi School robotics club. The students' work on the robot was part of the curriculum as an elective taught by Ali Arsanjani, MUM computer science faculty and IBM chief technology officer for emerging technologies.

The competition is part of the FIRST Robotics Competition, which is sponsored by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a nonprofit organization founded in 1989 by Segway inventor Dean Kamen to encourage student team-building skills, entrepreneurship, and "gracious professionalism."
 

Maharishi School Boys Varsity Tennis Team 2009 Runner-up at State

For the past five years and 12 of the last 22 years, Maharishi School has been a part of the boys tennis final four.

However, after four senior players left from last year’s third-place team, the young Maharishi School squad had some learning to do. In the end, Maharishi School fell just short of their fifth state championship in that 22-year span and took a runner-up finish.

“It was a long day, but a great day and a terrific outcome for this young team,” said head coach Lawrence Eyre. “Looking at the other schools, most every school had at least 4 seniors on their team. Given all that, it was a great outcome, and we’re really proud of our boys.”

Maharishi School now has four state championships, five runner-up and three third-place finishes in those 12 qualifying years. With the entire lineup returning for 2010, the boys tennis team will surely be a force to reckon with.

   

Four Maharishi School Teams Compete at Destination ImagiNation Global Finals

This year Maharishi School was represented by four teams at Destination ImagiNation (DI) Global Finals May 20th – 23rd. After advancing through multiple levels of competition regionally with 98 other teams from all over Iowa they joined with more than 10,000 of the world's leading gifted and talented students from all 50 states and 8 countries in Knoxville Tennessee, to see who developed the best solution to their challenge. Only those teams that place in the top three in a regional competition and first place in a state competition go on to Global Finals. DI Global Finals is the largest creativity competition of its kind held anywhere.

Although many schools offer DI only to students in talented and gifted programs, any student at Maharishi School can participate. The competition is open to students from third grade through college and promotes creativity, teamwork and problem-solving skills. Students solve two different kinds of challenges, each with its own purpose and educational focus. Their presentations are scored by a panel of judges for teamwork and display of both artistic and scientific creativity. It is a requirement that this is done without any help from parents or teachers.

The School has a history of success at the highest level of competition. Since 1992, Maharishi School students have won more state championships than any other school in state history. They have won DI Global Finals four times and garnered more top-ten finishes than any other school in the world. The creative, problem-solving skills, learned by working together in small groups cooperatively, are a great tool in any occupation after leaving school for the work place.

 

Maharishi School Takes Home Group Mime Banner at All-State Festival

students winning state mime competition

On Saturday, February 21st, Maharishi School performed at the Iowa High School Speech Association All-State Festival at the Iowa State Center in Ames. Six out of nine entries from Maharishi School were recognized at the All-State Festival this year.

Only the top performances from each of the State-level competitions receive such an honor. Two Maharishi School pieces received special recognition at the All-State Festival and four pieces performed.

To get to the all-state speech tournament, one must first proceed from the district and state tournaments. Beginning in January, nearly 26,000 students from more than 500 member schools performed acts at the district level in hopes of receiving a top rating to advance to the state level. After nearly 1,400 students performed at the IHSSA State Large Group, 126 Iowa high schools had groups named Outstanding Performers and were given the opportunity to attend the All-state Festival.

Critics for the All-State Festival are chosen from all across the state to judge each of the categories. At the end of the day, each critic from each respective category chooses his or her favorite performance of the day, thus awarding the Critic's Choice Award to that chosen performance and school and entrusting them with the banner to hang in their school for one year.

This year, Maharishi School's group mime, "The Adventures of Miss Power and the Amazing Violet Velocity In: Dial "H" for Hero!" received the Critic's Choice Award for the best group mime of 2009 in the state of Iowa.