THIRD GRADING PERIOD ENDS //MARCH 12 COPPELL ISD SPRING BREAK // MARCH 15-19

AI Club introducing students to

world of machine learning
Tr i s h a A t l u r i and Aarian Ahsan joined the club at “We also delve into machine
BUSINESS MANAGER its inception. learning libraries, such as Ten-
@trishatluri “When I was first introduced to the sorFlow and scikit-learn.”
club, I thought AI was a super complex A change that has marked the
Fingers fly across the keyboard as and hard to reach topic that [was] too evolution of the club was the shift
lines of code appear on the screen in much to grasp,” Vazhekatt said. “Once in focus from theory-based discus- Dallas professor Gordon Arnold and data
Python, a programming language in- you get into AI, you realize how simple sions to coding lessons where members scientist Shouvik Pradhan. The speaking
comprehensible to most of the popula- and elegant it is, especially if you’re in- dive into the practical applications of AI. events are open to all CHS students.
tion. Yet, it is perfectly understandable terested in technology.” “The first year, we mainly went over Students can join the club by emailing
to the Coppell High School Ar- Every Monday at 4:45 p.m., the AI theory,” Vazhekatt said. “The classic the co-presidents at [email protected].
tificial Intelligence Club. Club meets via Zoom. At the be- question we discussed was, ‘is AI going com and [email protected].
The AI Club was ginning of each meeting cycle, to take over the world?’ This year, due “AI is already a pretty big facet of our
founded in 2018 by lecturers teach the club about to the online format and because we lives,” Srikanth said. “AI is going to play a
2020 CHS grad- the basics of AI. These in- really wanted to get into projects, we big role in our future, and understanding
uate and former structional meetings lay the went into coding straightaway.” how it works can be useful.”
Sidekick staff foundation for the projects In addition, the AI Club hosts speaking
writer Akif Abi- that follow. events with experts in the field. Past guest TRISHA ‘22 can be reached at
di to encourage “We’ve talked about the speakers include University of Texas at [email protected]
discussion about subcategories of arti-
artificial intelli- ficial intelligence, in-
gence and machine
learning. CHS se-
cluding machine learn-
ing and deep learning,” Jobs involving artifical
nior co-presidents CHS junior lecturer
Zach Vazhekatt Hari Srikanth said.
intelligence have
been appearing more
Percent of articifical intelligence jobs

frequently on job posting

on popular job positing sites

sites in recent years.

Graph by Neha Desaraju

Source: Burning Glass via Stanford HAI
Created with Datawrapper

Coppell High School junior Hari Srikanth is a member of the Artificial Intelligence Club and is a lecturer at their weekly meetings. The AI Club
has been making strides in the past year to introduce more people to coding through coding workshops, open discussions, and guest speakers.
Photo by Olivia Cooper

Minn finds aloha spirit at Victory Place

Anjali Vishwanath specialized school. It hosts a limited Teachers and administrators know
STAFF WRITER number of students who participate in every student in school, and they
@viola_swan one of two programs. The Compass pro- all support the students and
gram is for students with behavioral is- their goals.
“Aloha is more than just a word sues, and the Turning Point program is To Minn, this is the
or greeting,” Victory Place @ Cop- for students wishing to graduate early. most important part of
pell Principal Jeff Minn said. “It Minn and his team at Victory Place the work done at Victo-
means mutual support and love, incorporate social-emotional learning ry Place.
with no obligation in return. That’s (SEL) and relationship building into “What I love is that I’m
the spirit that we have here [at Vic- their students’ lessons. Their goal is able to get to know every
tory Place].” not only to prepare students for the learner’s story,” Minn said.
Minn grew up in Hawaii, where world academically, but also to prepare “I get to know their names,
he was familiarized with the concept them for problems and setbacks life what their goals are, what
of the ‘aloha spirit.’ Aloha directly may present them. their dreams are. And then
translates to both ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’; “We are continually looking at how we build a program around
however, it means much more cultur- we can not just help them academically, how to support them for both
ally. Minn noticed the but help them to become a well rounded Compass and Turning Point.”
trademark aspects graduate,” Minn said. “Just like we build
of this philosophy in time for [core classes], we feel that is ANJALI ‘22 can be reached at
at work in Victo- important to build in time to build social [email protected]
ry Place. emotional skills.”
Victory This is the alo- Jeff Minn has been the principal of Victory Place @ Coppell for four years. Originally
Place is a small, ha spirit at work. from Hawaii, Minn currently works with students in both The Compass and Turning Point
programs. Photo by Angelina Liu