With their final presentations due to be given over the course of three evenings in January, students in this semester’s Newtown High School Junior/Senior Project course practiced for their upcoming presentations.

The Junior/Senior Project Program at NHS is designed to enable students to build on existing strengths and to provide an opportunity for further study not available in the traditional classroom. The program provides motivated and responsible high school juniors and seniors the opportunity to explore a subject/career that they are passionate about and develop a career-oriented relationship with a community professional as a mentor in the student’s area of chosen interest.

Students in this semester’s Junior/Senior Project course worked on a range of different projects.

Student Sydney Allen oversaw the design and creation of a children’s room at Life Haven, a women and children’s shelter in New Haven, under the mentorship of Vertical Church’s Randal Alquist and Reed Intermediate School’s Karen King; student Reed Bryant worked on a Sandy Hook memorial design under the mentorship of Phil Clark of Claris Construction; Rachel Crosby designed a CrossFit beginners course under the mentorship of Kurt Kling at CrossFit Red-Zone; Cassie Erikson wrote and edited poetry under the mentorship of Sayward Parsons from NHS; Dori Farley created curriculum for a physical education class under the mentorship of NHS’s Cheryl Lombardo; and Trevor Gaines composed an orchestral piece under the mentorship of Michael J. Gilbertson.

Also, Chris Lafky designed and built tesla coils under the mentorship of Stuart Popovize of Advanced Fusion; Sean MacMullan created a fully textured model of a creature for a short animated film under the mentorship of the University of Connecticut’s Matthew Worwood; Catherine McHugh wrote, filmed, and edited a short video about the high school under the mentorship of NHS’s Kristin Violette; Brendan Qiao learned blender techniques and animating a character in a short film under the mentorship of NHS’s Erik Holst-Grubbe; and Joey Whelan composed a short piece for a jazz band under the mentorship of NHS’s Chris Lee.

The room senior Sydney Allen oversaw created at Life Haven in New Haven had an official opening celebration on December 2, but before that could happen, Sydney organized volunteers and donations to make her vision for the space a reality.

Because some of her original donors fell through, Sydney said she applied for a grant through the Karma For Cara (K4C) Foundation.

“And they gave me $1,000 and I was able to distribute that to different businesses to buy things, and [Bob’s Discount Furniture] gave me a $1,000 gift card to buy the furniture. [Lowe’s Home Improvement] was able to donate the flooring and the paint and they gave all the other supplies at cost,” said Sydney.

She also said a family friend gave her a gift card to IKEA to help make the space one where students could work on homework, read, or finish other projects.

“It came out great,” said Sydney about her project overall.

According to a video Sydney created for her project, more than $5,200 was donated from various businesses and community members for her project and 13 volunteers helped remodel the space at Life Haven. The group painted, put new floors in, and completed plumbing and electrical work.

Rachel Crosby, a junior, said she wanted to design a program for CrossFit because she has been participating in CrossFit for the last three years. She also wants to be a CrossFit coach some day.

“I was hoping I would gain a better understanding and learn how to program workouts,” Rachel said.

One of the biggest things Rachel said she learned is that CrossFit programs may seem random, but each move has a reason.

Reed Bryant, a junior, said he created a scale model of his concept design for a Sandy Hook School memorial for his project. The scale is roughly 5 feet by 3 feet in size.

“I also created renderings online and worked with Claris Construction in town,” said Reed.

By the end of his presentation in January, Reed said he hopes to submit his design to the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial Commission. Reed said his design is a park based on a circular podium with six columns, for the adults that died on 12/14, and a walk-in cube that will have the names of each child killed that day engraved in glass.

Dori Farley, a junior, said she created a website and taught a physical education unit to both juniors and seniors.

“It’s basically the fitness workouts and exercises that I’m teaching, and I’m leading those,” said Dori.

Each day Dori said she teaches a new topic to the students, from yoga to a full-body toning workout. Dori also said her mentor, NHS teacher Cheryl Lombardo, helped her with planning.

Junior Trevor Gaines said he wants to go into music composition, which was why he chose to work with his mentor Michael J. Gilbertson to create an orchestral composition. To start his composition, Trevor said he first drew a picture of what he wanted the piece to feel like.

“I walked in knowing very little about orchestra and orchestration and the choirs of the orchestra and how they all interact,” said Trevor, about how his mentor helped him with his project. “He taught me so much. It is invaluable.”

Senior Joey Whelan said he also created a musical composition, but his was a “big band” composition and he worked with NHS’s Chris Lee as his mentor.

“I want to go into music school and go for some type of composition,” said Joey, who also said he has applied to Berklee College of Music.

Sean MacMullan, a junior, said he made a 3D model of “a creature.”

“It was a creature I came up with,” said Sean. “It looks like a dog, a little bit, but, like, a really messed- up dog.”

Sean said the creature was designed to be scary looking, and he wanted to make it because he enjoys creating things. He used two open source programs, Blender and Krita, to design and create his creature.

Junior Brendan Qiao said he learned to use Blender for his project, because Sean pushed him to do it.

“I learned how to animate things and how to create models of people or anything,” said Brendan, about using the computer programs.

Brendan described his project as an animated person “going in for a handshake.”

 Senior Cassie Erikson said she created an anthology of poems for her project.

“The plot of the poetry is a patient going through an asylum,” said Cassie, “and the stages of being in the asylum.”

Cassie said she “has a love” for asylums and mental institutions, and she also said she started the bulk of the poetry last year. Overall, Cassie said her “Rude Awakenings” anthology has 73 poems.

Chris Lafky was not present for Monday night’s practice presentation.

The Junior/Senior Projects are slated to be presented for before a panel of judges at the start of January.