Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Students from opposing grades grip the rope tightly and lean back for a game of tug-of-war. Classmates crowd around them, shouting words of encouragement. Nearby, students race across the courtyard in the relay competitions. In the corner, markers and crayons are spread across tables as each grade level competes to make the most creative mural.
Archer hosted its annual Color Wars Friday, April 24 in the courtyard, where students dressed up in their grade’s theme colors to compete and show support for one another.
Virginia Ashford-Davis (’32) dressed up as The Lorax to represent her grade’s color: orange.
“I wore this as a Halloween costume last year and this year, and it so just happens to work for the color,” Ashford-Davis said. “We’re up against the 10th graders, which is going to be fun. I’m going to distract them with my costume while singing ‘Let it Grow.'”
The Student Council has been planning Color Wars since the first semester. Senior Dakota Tooley, who has been part of the Student Council since her freshman year, said the group plans events that appeal to all grades.
“We try to figure out what’s going to be appealing to each grade because sometimes we’ll do an event, and it doesn’t really hit as hard as we want it to,” Tooley said. “So we figure out what’s going to be fun for every grade and what sixth grade to 12th grade can participate in.”
Even though planning these briefs can get hectic, Tooley said, seeing students come together and enjoy the activities makes the hard work worth it.
“It’s been a lot different just because we’re seniors. We’re trying to go out with a bang because our grade is super spirited, and we want to make sure our door and our events during Color Wars reflect that. It’s just been different. We’ve been more on top of it, in some aspects,” Tooley said. “It’s just that it is the end of senior year, so it’s harder to stay focused all the time, but we’re trying our best, and it’s a lot of fun, just getting together with all of our friends.”
In the corner of the courtyard, a new emerging invention appeared. Members of the robotics club brought out Robot Clemetine, a red simulator designed to intake pickleball-sized balls. After entering the machine, the balls spin through an internal rotating mechanism before being released into the air, as participants standing a few feet away try to catch the ball, which contains candy.
As Color Wars continued during lunch, junior Catalina Good stood by the robot, introducing it to students and faculty as they passed by.
“We worked on it all year, technically. We spent the first three months of school designing it,” Good said. “So now we’re making it actually work. We’ve gotten to around 50% consistency, which is much better than the one out of four we had before.”
Robot Clementine was originally designed for the FIRST Tech Challenge, a robotics program where students in grades seven to 12 build robots to compete. Good said the purpose of bringing it out at Color Wars is to showcase the work of the robotics team to the school community.
“This is actually the first time we’ve done this,” Good said. “I’m finding this engagement … very just surprising because our robotics team is fairly small. We’d like to get more people on the team.”
The 10th grade eventually won tug-of-war, one of Color Wars’ main events, with the seniors coming in second. Tooley said being on Student Council and helping plan these events has taught her leadership skills and the importance of having a positive attitude.
“I always love Color Wars, and since it’s my last one, and the whole grade’s last one,” Tooley said, “I just want to make sure everybody is really connecting, having fun and winning.”
