As part of Nueva's commitment to providing inspiring and meaningful learning opportunities for its students, the school held four STEM-related assemblies during the 2010-2011 academic year. Among the invited presenters were renowned mathematics professors and instructors, research scientists, puzzle masters, and inventors.   

In November, Arthur Benjamin, a professor of mathematics at Harvey Mudd College, led a dynamic presentation called "Mathemagics" where he demonstrated and explained his secrets for performing rapid mental calculations faster than a calculator. Dr. Benjamin wowed the children with fast mental calculations, which you can view online at Dr. Benjamin's TED talk.

In January, Nueva students met with Tony DeRose, a senior scientist and lead of the Research Group at Pixar Animation Studios. Prior to joining Pixar, Tony was a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. In 1995, he joined Pixar and developed a new system for controlling the movements of computer-animated characters, which he described as “the digital equivalent of adding strings to a marionette.” This innovative rigging system was first used in the movie “Toy Story 2” and later in “Monsters, Inc.,” "The Incredibles," "Finding Nemo," and "Cars." During his assembly, Tony showed students the steps for creating digital animation and described an algorithm Pixar uses to compress digital images.

In March, Nueva was visited by James Tanton (PhD. Mathematics, Princeton University, 1994), a research mathematician deeply interested in bridging the gap between the mathematics experienced by young students in school and the creative mathematics practiced and explored by mathematicians. He is now a full-time high school teacher at St. Mark's School in Massachusetts and does all that he can to bring joy into mathematics learning and teaching. During his assembly, James described a puzzle he designed when he was a child staring up at a ceiling of square tiles: Path Walking Puzzle.

And to kick off this year's STEM Fair, Nueva held an assembly with Scott Kim (PhD. Computers and Graphic Design, Stanford University). Scott is an American puzzle and computer game designer, artist, and author. He started writing an occasional "Boggler" column for Discover magazine in 1990, and became an exclusive columnist in 1999. He has created hundreds of puzzles for magazines such as Scientific American and Games, as well as thousands of puzzles for computer games. In 1984, Scott created the Nueva logo, which you can see in some of the Nueva library books. During his assembly, Scott described his process for inventing puzzles and taught students how to design their own Sudoku puzzles.