By Aneesh Karuppur ’21
Back to school means new teachers, new courses, and, of course, new technology. This past summer at Pingry, members of STC interned with the Technology Department. Under the guidance of Mr. Frantz, Mr. Azar, and Mr. Burkhart, two teams completed various projects to prepare the school for a new year.
The hardware-oriented tech team installed projectors and Roku streaming devices, prepared old equipment to be sold, repaired faculty computers, and completed a variety of other projects. The software-oriented code team successfully completed a more efficient version of the Pingry event approval system, taught the Python programming language to faculty, and designed a new curriculum for Pingry’s existing computer science courses.
Aditya Gollapudi (VI), a member of the Code Team, said this about the experience: “[We] felt very lucky to have so much trust placed in us by the [Computer Science] department. Not only were we given control over design decisions in a product that will hopefully be used by much of the administration, but we were also allowed to help shape the high school, middle school, and elementary school CS curricula. To have that level of trust in a high schooler is unique to places like Pingry.”
Noah Bergam (IV) also commented about his time as a member of the Tech Team: “Pingry’s tech internship was a lot more than just installing projectors and sorting inventory. As we worked and went on breaks, we were able to have interesting conversations about the tech world at large, about topics ranging from cryptocurrency to cars to Facebook’s data scandal. In these little conversations, I was able to learn a lot from my coworkers.”
Some exciting technology news has transpired in the world at large in the last few months. In September, Apple held its much anticipated iPhone and Apple Watch launch event. The new phones are the XR, XS, and XS Max. The iPhone XR, Apple claims, boasts the most advanced LCD in the industry. The iPhone XS and XS Max are Apple’s flagship phones this year, featuring sharper OLED screens. All of the phones use the Apple-designed A12 Bionic chip, which includes Apple’s Neural Engine for augmented reality and advanced camera capabilities. The XS features an improved rear dual-camera setup that expands on last year’s iPhone X, while the XR features a single rear camera.
The Apple Watch Series 4 features a 30% larger screen and a thinner design. As with last year’s model, it is available with cellular connectivity. It includes more activities to track workouts and can be equipped with an ECG (electrocardiogram) to determine your heart’s electrical activity. This makes it easier to monitor your heart and enables it to help alert you of any problems.
In August, Samsung released its flagship Galaxy Note 9 smartphone. It features an enormous amount of onboard storage, so you won’t have to worry about running out of space on your phone again. The phone also comes with its trademark S Pen, a stylus that can be used to write on the phone.
Finally, in July, Apple suddenly released its new line of MacBook Pros . . . and then immediately apologized once reports of overheating started rolling in. They soon after released a bug fix; the overheating is no longer much of an issue. They feature Apple’s in-house T2 chip, which bundles stronger security features with other (previously separate) controllers. I offer a word of warning about these new MacBooks: Apple has removed the data recovery port that was present in earlier MacBook Pros. If the logic board fails and you do not have a backup, your data may be lost.