We received a wonderful press release from Ohio State about West Boca High graduate Samuel Yacinthe:
West Boca Native Re-engineers Chevrolet Camaro
Samuel Yacinthe, a graduate of West Boca Raton Community High School, is helping to redesign and re-engineer a Chevrolet Camaro as part of the Ohio State EcoCAR 3 team.
EcoCAR 3 is a four-year advanced vehicle technology competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors. Students from 16 universities across North America are challenged to redesign and re-engineer a Chevrolet Camaro to make it more fuel efficient and better for the environment, while still maintaining safety, performance and consumer acceptability.
Yacinthe serves as the Systems Engineering Lead for the Ohio State EcoCAR 3 team. In his role, he is responsible for design, control, and integration of vehicle systems. He had a large impact on the vehicle architecture selection process, since he helped develop models of the entire system, so the team could predict the behavior of the system for different design inputs.
“My position on the Ohio State EcoCAR 3 team during year one is extremely important,” Yacinthe said. “Since we currently don’t have a physical vehicle, we need to run simulations on computers to test our ideas for achieving design goals.”
So, what really sparked Yacinthe’s interest in automotive engineering? He instantly thought back to his first Lego set and how he enjoyed finding solutions to complex problems. But, in high school Yacinthe had an opportunity to experience engineering and design on a whole new level.
“At my school, I was on the drafting and design track,” Yacinthe said. “This meant that I took one class a year dedicated to those topics. In an early course, I was introduced to computer-aided design tools. By the end of the track, I was able to draft an entire house.”
He specifically mentioned math teacher Stacey Jacobowitz: “I don’t think I ever told her, but she was one of my most favorite teachers throughout high school. Though math can be challenging, she made it fun and easy to understand.”
Yacinthe is still considering where he hopes to be in the next few years. This summer he will be interning with the Ford Motor Company within their Research & Advanced Engineering group.
“I believe that many of the opportunities I have now are a product of a great foundational education and hometown,” Yacinthe said. “Whether I go on to become a Professor in engineering or to work at an automotive company, the skills I have learned from Boca Raton will stay with me forever.”
Yacinthe grew up in the Palmetto Pines community south of Palmetto Park Road and west of 441.
Read more about the project: Ohio State’s EcoCAR team
Tag: west boca high
Bands Perform at FAU: West Boca, Spanish River, Loggers Run & Omni
Eleven school bands performed today at the Ninth Annual FAU Concert Band Festival. Several local schools participated, and we caught four of their performances, below.
If anyone wants to share video of Boca Middle or Boca High, please e-mail us at [email protected].
The first band we saw was West Boca High:
Here they are in video and audio, with band director Larry Shane conducting. Mr. Shane informs us this was the “Symphonic Band” and also sent us another video of the Wind Ensemble, which is at bottom.
Next up we saw Spanish River High with director Craig White.
Then came Loggers’ Run Middle School and director Craig Denny.
And the last one we saw was Omni Middle School with William Castillo directing.
From West Boca High’s Mr. Shane, here is the Wind Ensemble:
Going Bald and Saving Lives at Olympic Heights and West Boca High
Brian Levine is a student at West Boca High.
Cross-town rivals West Boca High School and Olympic Heights High School are teaming up in order to fight against one common enemy, cancer. This year, these two high schools continue the eternal struggle against cancer by participating in St. Baldrick’s.
St. Baldrick’s is an organization that first started on March 17th, 2000. It began as a challenge Tim Kenny set forth to his colleagues John Bender and Enda McDonnell. One simple question – “How will you give back in return for your own good fortune in business?” – kicked off a massive, international program unlike anything seen before. Today, thousands of people world-wide volunteer, donate, and shave their heads in order to help put an end to children’s cancer. If you want to learn more about St. Baldrick’s, click here.
Here in Boca Raton, high school students at Olympic Heights and West Boca are shaving their heads in order to support this cause. West Boca High has been participating since 2013 while Olympic Heights is going on their eleventh year of participation. Now, both schools together have earned well over half a million dollars. Students are working hard to raise money for the event by sending mail and emails and by taking advantage of social media.
Olympic Height’s event will take place on February 26th at their gymnasium. In order to prepare for the event, students and teachers alike are selling custom dog tags ($5), wristbands ($5) and t-shirts ($10). They are being sold in room 8106 at Olympic Heights. Students here must raise a total of $100 dollars in order to get their head shaved. If you would like to help Olympic Heights, you can either write a check out to Olympic Heights, donate in cash to room 8106, or donate online to their website here. Donations can go to the entire school or to an individual student.
West Boca’s event is also taking place on February 26th at the gymnasium in their school. To participate as a ‘shavee’ in the event, students at West Boca High have to raise $50. At the school store and around campus, volunteers are selling St. Baldrick’s bracelets ($5) that must be bought in order to attend the event. To donate and help raise money for West Boca High, you can write a check out to West Boca High, donate cash to the school store, or donate online to their website here. Donations can go to the entire school or to an individual student.
A child is diagnosed with cancer every three minutes world-wide. Come support schools and students alike as they work together to help save lives and put an end to cancer this St. Baldrick’s. If you have the opportunity, go bald! After all, hair grows back!
Pictures provided by Joseph Marutollo and Elena McKnight.
Note: Another student wrote up last year’s St. Baldrick’s event at Olympic Heights.
Bonnie & Clyde: A Fun Ride
Slow Burn Theatre’s performance of Bonnie & Clyde was one of their best yet. We were fortunate to be invited to the press night. As fans of Slow Burn, this was our second favorite show after Next to Normal. We only call it second because the story in Next to Normal was so good.
We liked many things about Bonnie & Clyde last night. What stood out most to this writer were the great voices of the cast, particularly leads Jessica Sanford as Bonnie Parker and Bruno Faria as Clyde Barrow. The two had a strong chemistry. Sanford fulfilled the sexy role with aplomb, and Faria filled the stage with energy.
Juliette Valle also impressed with her voice as young Bonnie. Not only did she sing beautifully, but the character of her voice also matched the older Sanford’s, making the transition between the two seamless. It was brilliant casting, or luck, or perhaps both.
There were no weak points in the cast. Nicholas Ismailoff infused Young Clyde with youthful energy. Christian Vandepas and Kaela Antolino were captivating as Clyde’s brother and sister-in-law. Patrick Rodriguez and David Cohn sang and acted well in their roles and we always love Kaitlyn O’Neill who played Bonnie’s mother. Also enjoyable was the lively ensemble and gorgeous stage setup:
Keep in mind that the story itself is troubling. It glamorizes criminals who killed police officers and others. But to the credit of the creators and performers, they more than hint at that irony during the show. Read more about the real Bonnie & Clyde on Wikipedia.
We’ve enjoyed Slow Burn’s performances at West Boca High. We’re happy for them that next season they’ll be moving up in the world to the Broward Center, though a little sad for ourselves and our community that we won’t have them so close any more. We will hold out hope that they’ll find a way to do a few shows somewhere close.
On the bright side they’re not done here yet. Bonnie & Clyde plays at West Boca High through February 8th. Good seats are going fast so we recommend buying tickets soon. It will be followed in April (still at West Boca High) by the smash hit Rent, and we expect those tickets to go fast too. Buy tickets here.
Straight A's for High Schools in West Boca
The school grades are in for high schools and West Boca did well. Out of 524 high schools in the state that were graded, Spanish River High was #50 on the list with West Boca at #84 and Olympic Heights at #111. Boca High, which serves some West Boca families, did even better at #24.
The numbers for our local schools are actually better than they appear. Many of the highly ranked schools on the list are specialty magnet or charter schools, such as Suncoast (7) and Dreyfoos (10). Most or all of the students in these schools get in through a competitive process and so they have few weak students to bring their scores down. Our West Boca high schools are all open and take everyone in their zoned districts. The #1 school on the list is the Pine View School in Sarasota, which is an all-gifted program. #2 and #3 are choice programs in Brevard that only admit students who consistently meet standards on the same tests that drive the scores in this system.
Within Palm Beach County, the two schools at the top (Suncoast and Dreyfoos) are both magnet schools. Leaving such programs out, Boca High and Spanish River are the top two in the county. Other regular high schools that posted top scores in the county include Jupiter High, Park Vista (Lake Worth), West Boca and Wellington.
One interesting note is that Atlantic High ended up with a higher overall score than Olympic Heights even though OH had better test scores, particularly in reading.
Two spreadsheets are below, first for Palm Beach and Broward counties, and then for the whole state. They are based on the main spreadsheet from the state database, but with some edits to highlight Palm Beach County and West Boca schools.
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/hs-grades-palm-beach-broward.xls”]
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/All-Districts-HSG-highlighted.xls”]