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The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

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Weekly one-on-one: Doug Bertain

Q: I hear your name a lot at Paly, what exactly is your job?
A: Well, I have several jobs; I am the engineering tech. teacher, computer design teacher, drafting teacher, and the robotics coach. 

Q: Earlier this year, the school had a problem with the Paly servers and we heard about huge drama that went down between you and the district.  Can you elaborate on what happened?
A: I don’t really like talking about this, it just continually makes people mad.  What really happened was a personality clash between me and another man.  Basically some students and I created the Paly e-mail and server system in 1996 with software that was not very high tech.  Then this other crew began trying to take it over and I didn’t really want to be involved with them anymore so I let them take over the system.  However, it requires a lot of work for someone else to be able to fully understand the system, so they needed to invest much more money to update the system to make it user friendly. 

Q: So then you really don’t have any part in the Paly systems anymore?
A: No, I don’t, in fact there is a room with the control system with a chain link wire fence around it that requires a key to get in.  We call it the "Dougout" because I can no longer get into it.

Q: I have been reading on the internet about lots of Robotics team urban legends, especially that robots do kids homework.  How many of these rumors got started in the engineering tech. lab?
A: Ha-ha, well I can tell you the urban legend of robots doing students homework was definitely not started here.  In fact, sometimes students spend so much time here they get behind on homework.  Of course we all fantasize about having a robot to clean our floors, make us food, and do our homework, but there are no urban legends I know about that were created in the lab.

Q: Again, I have heard rumors that the robotics team will spend nights and days locked up in this room.  What really goes on here late at night into the wee hours?  Raging parties?
A: We have been lucky because in about two years we haven’t had to sleep over here.  No, when we would stay over, we did not have wild parties.  Instead it was usually because we were not prepared for a robotics competition.  There are four aspects of competition that we have to prepare for: video, animation, website, and the actual robot.  So when we were not ready for competition we would have to sleep over in sleeping bags.  However, as I said, we haven’t had to do that in a few years.

Q: Myself and I’m sure the rest of the student body is wondering, are there any deep dark robotics team secrets?
A: I think the biggest secret about the robotics team is that coming in you really don’t need to know anything about robotics.  We have a team of 40 people this year and not everyone must physically build the robot.  We have design teams, animation teams, video teams?etc.  And so many people shy away from the robotics team because they think they do not know enough about robotics and engineering to be on the team.  Another secret our team is that no matter what, the robotics team will not quit.  Once you join the robotics team, you learn a sense of work ethic and you gain knowledge and skills you need later in life, especially the idea that you cannot quit once you have begun.

Q: Changing the subject a little, has teenage drinking and partying ever affected the robotics team?
A: I am proud to say never.  I have never had a problem on the robotics team with students who like to drink or do drugs.  I am very lucky to work with a great group of kids.  However, I have had a few students get romantic?

Q: How did that work out?  Any babies?
A: Ha-ha, luckily they were able to keep a very professional relationship in the lab to work on projects and I guess they had another romantic relationship elsewhere.  No, there were never any babies born because of a robotics team relationship.

Q: Here in the robotics and tech engineering room, what is your favorite TV show?
A: I don’t usually let the kids watch TV in here for the most part, because we are usually working.  However, on special occasions I will put on the World Series.  In the past we used to always put on Star Trek!  That was a highlight, we would break for that type of stuff when it was on the air, "techie" stuff.  For the most part though, we don’t have a unanimous favorite TV show in here.

Q: This is something I know the entire world wonders about.  How many sodas and Red Bulls do you think a week get consumed by the robotics team? 
A: Oh gosh, I don’t know if I would be able to give an accurate number.  All I can say is a lot.  Just tons of sodas, but I don’t know what will happen next year when all the junk food and sodas must be eliminated from campus.  The robotics team just drinks a lot of sodas.  In fact we even put our own soda machines inside the lab.  We were drinking so many sodas and it was too difficult to access the other soda machine at night time or on weekends, so we found two decrepit soda machines, one in a dumpster.  We fixed both of them up and put them in.  Red Bull however, is a different story.  Red Bull is too expensive and serves the same purpose as Coca Cola or Mountain Dew. 

   

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