Patak works on 3-D modeling, bio-medical engineering
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
Valedictorian Erik Patak offered humor to his audience as he created a chemical reaction during his address to his classmates at Voorheesville’s graduation ceremony on June 26. In life, as in the glass of water he held, instead of seeing the glass as half-full or half-empty, Patak said, “Try to fill it to the top.” Patak spoke of attitudes of optimists, pessimists, pragmatists who attempt to drink the water, and chemists who warn that the liquid may not be water, before adding a second solution that turned the “water” opaque. “The key to happiness is attitude,” Patak said.
NEW SCOTLAND — Valedictorian Erik Patak will head to the University of Rochester to study bio-medical engineering, after getting a taste of genetics studies last summer at the University of Montana.
“I was working in a lab,” he said of the five weeks he spent in Montana as a rising senior. “I made a genetic switch for Lyme disease. When you add a chemical…it’s a genetic sequence, and that’s the switch. If you add a chemical before the gene, it turns off the one after it. It turns that gene off.”
Patak’s personal interests outside his Voorheesville classes lie with his GoPro camera and other equipment, he said.
“I’m interested in video-editing, and 3-D modeling and animation,” he said. “I was learning off YouTube, one of the best educational resources.”
Patak played varsity soccer and varsity volleyball for Voorheesville. He said that winning a regional volleyball championship with his team was exciting.
He also participated in the science Olympiad, which he joined his sophomore year; the team placed 19th in the state against much larger schools, he said.
“That was one of the highlights of my high school years,” Patak said.
In the classroom, Patak and his friends worked hard and played hard together as a group, with only a two-tenths separation between their grade-point averages, he said.
“I spent a lot of time in my chemistry teacher’s room with old chemistry kits,” he said. “I had fun doing that. We found a significant number of chemistry kits.”
Patak enjoyed the kit that turned a clear solution opaque with the addition of reactive chemical.
Patak and salutatorian Ben Mackay are close friends, Patak said.
“We had made a bunch of slime one time,” he said, recalling the chemistry kits. “We regressed from seniors into 5-year-olds.”
The two worked together with their physics class to launch a weather-recording balloon, which has not yet been recovered.
“It was a great day — a lot of stress building up to that day,” he said. “We were working till the last minute. We had a very successful launch.”
The group set up activities for bystanders, like “pin the balloon on the map,” Patak said.
Patak theorized that the battery on the communications device stopped working due to cold.
“It’s down to -70 degrees Celsius up there,” he said. “That’s very cold for any normal battery.” The class last heard from the balloon when it was above Castleton (Rennselaer Co.) at 40,000 feet, Patak said. The balloon was projected to rise to 100,000 feet, he said.
“We’re hoping a farmer finds it in a field. No one reported a giant orange balloon,” he said, noting that it may have landed near Ghent (Columbia Co.). “Maybe it will turn up.”
Patak praised Voorheesville’s academics. As a senior, he said, his teachers treated him like a friend, and shared discussions about such topics as science articles in journals.
“My teachers have been great resources,” he said.
