Last week, the upper school’s club fair brought nearly 90 student organizations to the upper school campus’ donor plaza to offer students the chance to peruse the many club offerings available to them. The fair included many long-running clubs, such as the Gender and Sexuality Alliance, Key Club and Women in STEM, as well as new clubs including the Game Development Club.
“It consists of using software … to build 3D games by yourself for free,” said club officer Pranav Sukesh, grade 11. “The idea is, you can put your own creativity into it and apply your own coding skills, and you can just have fun with your friends.” The club’s projects also incorporate graphics software such as Blender “to make 3D models, put them into games and program them together to make a fun experience,” he added.
Several other clubs represented at the fair were also interested in the integration of technology into culture, including Bits and Bytes.
“We are passionate about music and technology and the intersection of that using AI,” said junior Saanvi Barghava, a club officer. The club examines such emerging fields as AI-generated music and karaoke generators, and their eventual goal is to have a “final project” created by the end of the school year. “Some of the activities we have planned are discussions with professionals in the field, such as professors or people who work at companies like Spotify, and we will be building actual projects related to this as well,” Barghava said.
The Photography Club aims to foster student interest in photography, regardless of their experience or access to professional equipment. “It doesn’t really matter what kind of camera you have,” said Abby Lim, grade 11, one of the club’s officers. “You can use a digital camera or a film camera. You can also use your iPhone or any type of smartphone camera.” The club plans to post student photos to their Instagram account and visit places such as San Francisco for photo-taking expeditions. “One of the main goals was to showcase different parts of the community and parts of other people’s lives,” said club officer Angelina Burrows, grade 11.