EST. 2015 OCTOBER 13, 2015 BYFIELD, MA

KUDOS BARS MIACRISTOPH RENSCHLER ‘18

A long tradition here at The Academy seems to have come to an end; Kudos Bars, the prize of the week for students thrown by Dr. Quimby, are nowhere to be found. Kudos Bars are irreplaceable, not just because of their perfect weight for throwing to students, but also because scientists have shown that the Granola, which Kudos Bars are made of, prevent cancer, lower the blood pressure, and boost energy. Imagine how the world will look like without it? Dr. Quimby himself got in touch with the Mars Company and tried to stop the corporation from deleting Kudos Bars from their product list, but to no effect. The solution has yet to make itself clear, and right now, the students are in a frenzy trying to find an alternative. But can Ku-dos ever be replaced? Only time will tell.

MISHA TOLLMAN TO BUILD SUPERCOMPUTERJOON WOO BAIK ‘18

GMO SCARE: DEBUNKEDREBECCA CAMPBELL ‘16

The last issue of The Governor contained a very scary-sounding article about the dangers of genetically modified food or organisms, or GMOs. But what makes GMOs different from the natural food we pick up at the grocery store or a farm stand? Here’s the deal: almost all the food you eat is genetically modified. Since the Agricultural Revolution, aka the dawn of civilization, we humans have been avidly se-lectively breeding crops for favorable traits. The corn you slather in butter every summer at cook-outs? It’s a hybrid of two other crops, teosinte and maize, selectively bred over millennia to produce the juicy sweet corn you know and love. The butter on the corn? It’s from dairy cows bred over thousands of years to produce enough milk to need milking at least once or twice a day just to be comfortable. That banana you pick up in the dining hall when you need a little potassium boost? Genetically modified, artificially selected, to keep seeds out of human teeth as early as twelve thousand years ago. Here’s a comparison

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THE BYFIELD BRIEFPeriodic Updates on Student Government

October 8-Proposed “no idling policy” for cars.-Google Sheets to track team points/ Morning meeting screening.-Possible prizes for winning team: End of year prize/dinner/breakfast...-Possible use of Snapchat to connect/up-date the student body: GOVS Life.-Legitimate clubs to meet two times per week, take selfies, email selfies to Elliott Tang.-Pep Really, with possible bonfires/com-petitions.

ERROR: NO WiFi

Every boarding student has tried to do homework in their room, only to find that StudentSecure and GovernorsSecure are both brutally slow. You log on to Veracross and it takes five minutes to tell you that the password has been typed in incorrectly. Or, you get an email from one of your teachers telling you about you homework and you have to turn off the wifi on your phone because you’re tired of waiting. Due to the engineering of the build-ings on campus, the thick cinder block walls of many of the older buildings on campus se-verely dampen the strength of the wifi signals. Having strong, reliable wifi is crucial in dorms especially during peak homework hours. Now, a solution. As a school, we spend a portion of the budget on renovating buildings or dorms over the summer. These funds would benefit the entire campus if they were used to update and redesign the way the

MAX CAIATI-NARDONE ‘17

IMAGE: Computer components, found in the Library Office

Left: Natural banana. Right: GMO

An ambitious Tech Connector, Misha Tollman will be building a personal supercomputer this year at Govs. I met with the builder himself, and asked him a few questions. Here is what he had to say: Where did you get the funds?I was able to acquire the funds through the Tech Connectors. I approached them in Junior year and had my project approved but would have to wait until senior year for the funds. Mrs. McVicker was very helpful throughout the process. How long will it take to build?The pace depends on how frequently I meet with Tech Connector members. It will probably take 4-5 PA blocks to complete the build so 1-2 weeks. I plan to document the process of building the computer (with the Tech Connectors) through blogging and video footage. What are the specs?The computer is a work of art. I spent a bit extra in some areas for flashy effects or to keep the coherence of the color theme. The Intel Pentium G3240 is about 79% as fast as an i7 4770k in single thread performance (just to put its underrated power in perspective). Here are some of the parts:

Crucial Ballistix RAM 1600 mhz 4GBx2-Intel Pentium G3240-Samsung 840 EVO 240GB SSD-Corsair 430W Modular Power Supply-NZXT Sleeved LED kit-TP-LINK 450 Mbps PCI Adapter-BitFenix

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THE ORIGIN OF ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORSJACK LIU ‘17

When I was heading towards the dining hall, two students sitting at a table were play-ing a game of rock paper scissor. This sight didn’t mean much to me at first until I mentioned it in my advisee meeting with Mr. Blondin. I suddenly realized that people from different cul-tures all over the world knows about this game. People have different names for it, but the basic structures of the rock, paper and scissor are all the same. So these questions came to my mind: If this game is universal, who invented it, and how did it spread? According to my research, this game dates back to 206 BCE as mentioned by a Chi-nese writer Li Rihua’s book Note of Liuyanzhai. However there is not any clear reference to who invented this game. And surprisingly, not until the early 20th century did the game spread be-yond Asia into Europe. Due to the fact that such trivial information about a child’s game is very inefficient for historians to study, the answer to who invented rock paper scissors is relatively vague. Nonetheless, there are still theories about this subject that grasped my attention. This game has another name called Rochambeau, which is also named after the French nobleman and general, Comte de Rochambeau, who fought in the American Revolution. It was believed that he was the first one to bring the game from Europe to US, and the Americans used his name as a celebration of the victory. It is explained in Len Fisher’s book, Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life: “George Washington is reputed to have played it with Cornwallis and the Comte de Rocham-beau to decide who would be the last to leave Cornwallis’s tent after the signing of the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. (The story goes that Rochambeau won, which is why the game is still called Ro-Sham-Bo in some quarters.)” Unfortunately, the real origin of “Rock,Paper, Scissor” is still widely unknown to the world. But it is amazing to think that a simple game can be so widely recognized at the diverse community of the Governor’s Academy.

between a domesticated banana and a wild banana. Which would you rather bite into? But what is a GMO, really? Genetically modified organisms aren’t just limited to things we ingest. Pesticides and herbicides are widely used by farmers (yes, organic farmers too) to make sure they get the largest and most healthy harvest they can manage. Geneti-cally modified feed for domesticated farm animals benefits both you and the cow. GMO yeast and bacteria is often used in wine and cheese culture. Before GMOs are let loose, they undergo heavy toxicity screening to make sure that they’re healthy not only for people to eat but for animals to eat as well. There have been no conclusive studies of GMOs that suggest-ed that they were dangerous or caused cancer. Brooke Borel from popsci.com debunked the fear of GMOs in an easy to grasp sentence. “The scientific consensus is that existing GMOs are no more or less risky than conventional crops.” Developing GMOs is not the same thing as adding corn syrup into a cereal glaze. It involves introducing DNA into organisms that make their produce more efficient, effective, or durable. It does not create superfoods that are going to take over the planet. With advancements in technology and ongoing pressure to feed the 765 million malnourished people in the world (WFP), GMOs are becoming part of a solution to a global priority. Genetically modified crops and pesticides help us produce a greater volume of food, therefore feeding more people. By inserting the DNA of favorable traits into crops, we can create genetically modified food that will be able to survive in unlikely conditions, whether that’s in a desert wasteland or a vertical farm*. With GMOs, it’s not a question of yes or no, but when. Genetically modified food and organisms are a lot less scary than they sound, and they are an essential piece to the puzzle of solving world hunger.*Vertical farming is a relatively new practice of growing crops within a greenhouse in a skyscraper.

YOUNG ENGINEERSMR. MARCUS SOULE

This Fall, a small group of seniors is embarking on a class of a different sort here at Governor’s. Instead of the traditional flow of content with written evaluations that come with many courses, the Engineering course is project-based. In this model students gain engineering-specific skills which aid them in a series of design challenges. Learning is guided by the teacher but is often self-directed as students have flexibility to dig deeply into their own areas of interest for inspiration. Creativity, problem-solving, and determination are valued highly in a course that is ultimately about bringing an idea from paper to reality.The course begins with a very simple design challenge: build a better cell phone holder. The task becomes more complicated as drafting and prototyping methods are introduced. Mechanical drawing skills, both paper and computer-aided, are added as base skills for engineering work. As the project continues cost analysis, budget considerations, and time constraints are added. The unit culminates with students tackling a very real question: “With fewer people carrying books, should the basic design and premise of the backpack be changed as well?” This challenges students to

go through the engineering design process to design, build, test, and evaluate their own task-specific backpack.The year will continue to pose similar challenges in common engineering fields including, but not limited to, structures and materials, electronics, fluids, hydraulics, and computers. The class will investigate buildings and green technology in the context of the Governor’s campus and even attempt to design the building of the future. Students will continue to build on their core engineering skill sets by exploring various prototyping methods including 3D printing.All of this builds their competency for the final project, which will take the entire fourth quarter. Designed to be heavily service-based, students will work in small groups to identify a solvable problem which will benefit the life of someone with a disability. Students will be mentored by actual practicing engineers and will apply their acquired skills to bring a product from idea to delivery for the identified individual. Demanding, challenging, a bit daunting, this ambitious project will hopefully be a profound and rewarding engineering exercise that will act as a fitting capstone for their Governor’s student careers.

WHO ARE WE? YOU TELL ME.CHLOE QUIGLEY ‘17

We’re go-getter girls that are good at sportsAnd long, lengthy lads that love being on courts.We’re quiet and loud around a Harkness table.

We’re young, ambitious, and very able.We’re quirky kids who defy the status-quo

And preppy boys whose parents have dough.We’re open and kind. We know most names

Of those who walk our same path, despite its flames.We play the piano. We’ll strum a guitar.

All of this, we do, to try to “get far.”We’re from countries with names that are hard to pronounce

And bank accounts of all kinds with varying amounts.We’re socialites, shy and, at times, somewhere in between

As we try to find answers; try to see the unseen.We’re different and the same in many ways.

Most of us came here by choice and most of us watch Greys.But there must be something greater that makes us one

And that’s that we’re all so much more than the things we’ve done.

internet is sent to the dorms and other academic buildings. Perhaps the most effective way to do this would be to lay wires under the campus and have one or two routers or signal strength boosters in a building. This would allow all of the academic buildings and dorms to, at least, have a reliable wifi signal. Another benefit would be that we would not be sending wifi out to the athletic fields or places where it it not needed. The Governor’s Academy’s mission statement says the school “combines centuries of tradition with a dedication to educational innovation...” and the student handbook recognizes the power and importance of computers and other devices that have access to the internet (page 15 in the student handbook). How can a school that is so dedicated to educational inno-vation be so behind when it comes to the greatest innovation ever to come to education? The importance of this change only increases with each passing year. More and more devices are becoming hybrids of computers and tablets. The teachers’ new computers fit into this category. One of the pitfalls of trending towards smaller and thinner devices is the disappearance of the Ethernet cable, and reliance on the power of wifi signal. As devices and the internet improve and develop, the need for faster and stronger wifi signals will increase. The content and capa-bilities of web pages are increasing so more and more bandwidth will be required to access web pages. Unfortunately, we will have to rely on the sometimes pitifully slow wifi connections to take advantage of the great innovations that will come in the near future.

The

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ERROR: NO WiFi(CONT)

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