By KAYLA J. MARSH
Staff Writer
MIDDLETOWN — Since 2010, the Scholars Program at Christian Brothers Academy has allowed select groups of students to embark on a research-driven experience that allows them to pursue an area of interest and importance to them.
On May 17, a few days before accepting their diplomas, five seniors took part in the first-ever Scholars Program Colloquium, showcasing the work they have been invested in throughout the year.
“What [the Scholars Program] does is gives them a legitimate excuse to spend time on things that they might not otherwise get the chance to and gives them a chance to find out things they’re interested in or even find out that things they thought they were interested in they aren’t anymore,” said Jeffrey Matson, Scholars Program director. “It provides them the opportunity to explore their passions more deeply.”
In the Scholars Program, students undertake an intensive interdisciplinary seminar series aimed at enriching their knowledge of a particular historical era during their junior year. During their senior year, they develop an independent project, exploring, in depth, areas of individual interest under the direction of a personal mentor.
One presentation came from Richard Stefanik, who demonstrated his musical composition skills.
“Growing up my dad was a musician, so we always had guitars downstairs, keyboards, an electronic drum set, and I really started pursuing music around the fifth grade and just kind of taught myself,” he said. “I taught myself the basics and really developed myself over the years, and once I entered high school I really started to go more into writing and writing songs on the piano.”
Being accepted into the Scholars Program, Stefanik said, allowed him to grow even more as a musician.
“It was great because it gave me an excuse to step aside from the schoolwork and gave me an excuse to really write music,” he said. “This program allows us to find and do things that we don’t normally get to do every day.”
During his presentation, Stefanik also explained the music editing software he uses to create his compositions.
“A big element of my project was using [a] recording program which lets me record a bunch of different instruments on my laptop and change the sounds, change the volumes, really get everything together and figure out what sounds best and move different parts of the song around,” he said. “My goal for the project was to develop as a songwriter and to use more instruments than just the piano.
“You don’t think about when you’re listening to music what the drums are doing, what the bass in the background is doing … and I feel like this project was a good way to realize how many instruments are really playing and all these different things that come together to create this really wonderful sound.”
Jonathan Alicea explained the production process behind his original comedy, “The New Yorker’s Guide to Making Money (in desperate circumstances),” and presented a scene from his work.
“I’ve always had a passion for writing, and writing a play was something I’ve never done before and I thought it’d be a good challenge for me,” he said. “I had this idea for a play which sort of came about as a question: ‘How ridiculous would it be if someone advertised a bed and breakfast in the middle of Manhattan?’ and it was just this crazy, random question that I just had that I wanted to explore a little bit further.”
As he developed the play’s plot, characters and other aspects, Alicea said he wanted to take the project one step further.
“It is one thing to write a script. I wanted to see if I could take it to the next level and see if I could actually have it performed. But I didn’t really know where to begin because I’m more of a writer, so I teamed up with one of my good friends, and we brainstormed ways to advertise and bring this to life and … we held auditions at my house, and people I’ve never met before came out and supported this play and wanted to be part of something they’ve never heard of before, which I thought was amazing, and … it was a beautiful performance. I couldn’t have been more pleased with how it turned out.”
Alicea also added a fundraising aspect to his project and raised more than $800 for the Alzheimer’s Association.
“It was a phenomenal experience for me and was very rewarding,” he said.
Taking a hint from the presidential campaign under way in the United States, Corbin Richardson presented a comprehensive analysis of the American electoral system in comparison with the parliamentary systems of England and France.
“I had a completely different idea of what I wanted to do before this year and I was working on that over the summer and I realized I wasn’t completely into my project idea, and then when I got back to school, that was when the primary cycle was really heating up, so I decided to take a close look at our politics and elections,” Richardson said.
“I looked at the specifics of how each system works, looked at the Electoral College and the official procedures and what happens if there is a tie, and how an election proceeds in such and such a scenario.
“I love history, even before I did this project, but doing this got me to take a little bit more interest in political science as well.”
Anthony Sardella invented a prototype of a device that allows you to charge your cell phone using your breath.
“It took a while to think about actually,” he said. “I thought of it in physics class. We were doing this respiration problem and seeing how the physical attributes create energy and whenever you breathe out, when you exhale when you exercise, you lose like 11 watts of energy, which is a lot, so I figured why not try to capture that energy to make a more efficient way to power things.”
Doing research, Sardella had to figure out a way to build his prototype.
“For the longest time I was trying to wind the coil myself, and I bought so many different types of wires and ails and wades and it just wasn’t generating enough power,” he said. “I got this [motor] which had thousands of coils that are microscopic, which made it easier, and then I attached a mini-turbine so that when you attach it to the mask [you would wear to help charge your devices] as you breathe out it would spin the turbine, which would spin the magnets creating the … energy to charge a phone.”
Matthew Baldes explained the application and production of his own quad copter that he used to shoot video.
“I always was interested in robotics and this kind of technology with drones, and there’s a lot of videos on YouTube showing the view from a drone where they’ll fly, and I thought it would be cool to do that for myself, so over the summer I started building this quad copter and got different materials and just sort of compiled them together,” he said.
“The process was really cool building it and getting it together because obviously it is easier to buy these things online — there’s a huge market for them — but to sort of build it yourself you really learn about the intricacies of how that works and sort of the technology and putting it together, so that was a cool aspect.”
Baldes added a camera to the top of the quad copter and provided a glimpse into the video footage shot in several New Jersey parks.
“I was also interested in learning about drone technologies and how that is going to be advancing in the future and how there is going to be a ton of opportunities for different fields and how they affect these industries that are coming about, whether it be search-and-rescue or just analysis of agriculture,” he said. “There are so many different opportunities to use this technology.”
Matson said the first annual Scholars Program Colloquium was a success.
“We generally have 18 to 20 scholars, and this was the first time that we opened this up for the outside community,” he said. “Generally they give their presentations for family, students and anyone around here, and this year we decided to open it up a little it and I think it was a big success.
“This was a chance to really show what is going on here with these guys [and] give these guys something that will help them stand out when they apply to college.”
Christian Brothers Academy is a private, Catholic, academic preparatory school for boys that is located in Lincroft on Newman Springs Road.