The 2009 Barbeque and Pool Party was the third annual social gathering for profoundly gifted students held at the home of HEROES founder, Rita Ostrager. The 300 people who came enjoyed swimming, ping-pong, badminton, Wii and other games; not to mention the hickory smoked chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs and sausage with peppers and onions grilled up by her husband Robert Ostrager. Parents were able to network and socialize and kids were able to meet new friends and renew relationships with friends they met at the January Conference.
Guests were also able to talk to Dr. Michelle Muratori of Johns Hopkins University's Study of Exceptional Talent, Michael Goeller and Tisha Bender of Rutgers University's Writing Department and Dr. G. Boyd Swartz of Monmouth University's Math Department. Donations received at the party are being used to file for non-profit status and to organize the January 2010 Conference.
Members of HEROES gathered Sunday, October 11, 2009 at Combat Sports in Manalapan, NJ to enjoy a lively game of outdoor laser tag. The group was broken into two teams which competed in games of elimination and capture the flag. Both kids and adults participated in this event, diving behind trees and forts for protection and firing rapidly at the opposing team members. After 10 shots the alarm would sound “Man down, man down” signaling a team member was dead.
After the games were finished, the competitors packed up their gear and gathered around picnic tables to enjoy pizza and soda. Although many of the participants had only met a few hours ago they socialized as if they had known each other forever. As in every party there was dessert-cupcakes. However, these cupcakes were unique because each was labeled as a different element from the Periodic Table of Elements and carefully arranged in the proper order. Everyone rushed to find different elements and some created compounds with multiple elements. Both kids and adults formed new friends and enjoyed themselves immensely.
Over 100 people attended our second annual conference at Rutgers University. Students were able to participate in 4 labs and 13 other one hour course while parents attended sessions on parenting and educating the profoundly gifted.
The two and three hour lab programs allowed students to conduct chemistry experiments on green florencent protein, access and analyze NASA’s data in an X-Ray Astro-physics lab, build robots, run a cardio-test on a horse and dismantle an underwater glider. During the one hour classes students could choose to learn write a simple program in C++, examine live specimens from our local waterways, develop their creative problem solving skills, improve their writing, find out about current research and much more. The program ran past its expected ending time because we had difficulty convincing the students and instructors to leave their work at the Coastal Ocean Observation Lab (COOL) and students were racing their newly created robotic mice and playing games with new friends.
HEROES member Eric Schneider won FIRST PLACE in the individual competition at the 7th Annual Garden State Undergraduate Mathematics Conference on Saturday, April 10 against math majors from across New Jersey and surrounding states. The HEROES team earned 6th place against approximately forty 3-member teams of math majors. Dr. G. Boyd Swartz obtained special permission for HEROES to enter this competition designed for undergraduate math majors with problems from high school mathematics, calculus, linear algebra, differential equations and other introductory level college math courses. The team members participate in a newly formed Math Study Group lead by Dr. Swartz and are already planning for next year's competition.
Almost two hundred essays were submitted for the first annual Writing Talent Search which were graded by Rutgers University Instructors using the 355:101 Expository Writing grading rubric. Sixteen of the writers were selected as finalists who spent a day at Rutgers attending a class on improving their writing, meeting a published author and competing in a final round. Catherine Wong of Morristown High School won the first place prize of $1,000 scholarship and Chase Harrison of Millburn Middle School won the second place prize of a $500 scholarship. All finalists and semi-finalists received medals, letters of recognition and certificates at the awards program which was held at Rutgers University on May 22.
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On Saturday, February 20, HEROES members came together for an exciting afternoon of one of the world's most popular extreme sports. Guided by the professional belayers at Garden State Rocks in Morganville, the six kids who attended (plus one courageous mom who chose to try out the rock walls) spent an hour and a half displaying skills that would put Spiderman to shame. Even those who had never climbed before overcame their nervousness and had a great time. After climbing, the group adjourned to a back room for a snack. While munching on grapes and chips, they discussed ideas for future HEROES events. HEROES first rock climbing event set the bar high and future events will have a long way to climb!
HEROES members also gathered for a number of other smaller events during the year including, a screening of Obsessive Genius: The Making of a Scientist, game nights at the homes of various HEROES members, attending lectures or conferences together or going to see a play.