Six teams battle
at Astoria invite
WEEKEND
EDITION
SPORTS • 7A
Warrenton’s
best-kept secret
PROPERTY LINES
FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2015
142nd YEAR, No. 213
ONE DOLLAR
The Arctic Sea beckons WHS School
learns
lessons
from
threat
Alarming call
prompts Ocean
Beach School District
to go into lockdown
By KATIE WILSON
EO Media Group
Photos by JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
Ashley Fish, left, pilots the S.S. Bentley robot, while Rachel Najera, center left, Deangelo Montejo, center, and Charles Burrows, test out
the S.S. Lost Cause, the red and white robot. See more photos online at www.dailyastorian.com
Robotics teams compete to be state’s best
rate the building of ROVs his stu-
dents will put into regional compe-
titions.
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
W
ARRENTON — War-
renton High School’s
underwater
robotics
teams are headed to the Arctic Sea
on a mission.
The team’s remotely operated
vehicles (ROVs) are needed to dive
underneath the ice, collect samples
of algae and sea urchins; identify
and count species of sea stars; de-
ploy an acoustic sensor; and survey
an iceberg to determine its volume.
In reality, the North Bend
Swimming Pool will have to stand
in for the Arctic; ping-pong balls
for algae; O-balls for the sea ur-
chins; and PVC pipe sections for
the acoustic sensors and icebergs.
Three teams from Josh Jannus-
ch’s Science, Technology, Engi-
neering and Mathematics (STEM)
course, who have each built their
own underwater remotely operat-
ed vehicles, are heading to North
Bend Saturday for “Science and In-
dustry in the Arctic,” the 2015 Or-
egon Regional Marine Advanced
Blue Rangers by the pool
The S.S. Bentley sits at the bottom of the test pool at Warrenton
High School. The robot must be able to collect samples of algae
and sea urchins under a simulated ice sheet and identify starfish
species during the Ranger class of the Oregon Regional Marine
Advanced Technology Education’s robotics competition.
Technology Education’s (MATE)
ROV Competition.
“A lot of this is geared toward
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known about,” said Jannusch, who
started his STEM class this year
with the help of his principal and
a grant for the Verizon Foundation.
The grant helped pay for robot-
ics and other class materials, and
for Jannusch to travel to a facul-
ty workshop through SeaMATE,
where he learned how to incorpo-
The Blue Rangers, one of WHS’
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April 17 of their robot, S.S. Bent-
ley, in the school’s improvised Arc-
tic Sea: a backyard swimming pool
with plastic ice through which their
ROV descended into the depths —
all 4 feet of them — to hook sea
urchins and scoop up algae.
“We had a lot of trial and error,”
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with seniors Michael Suppa and
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Fish and Justice Watson.
Their team assembled every part
of the S.S. Bentley, from its PVC
frame, the claw that gathers the
sea urchins and the net to scoop in
algae to the hand-soldered remote
control, motors and the shrouds
protecting them, created using the
classes’ 3D printer.
See ROBOTICS, Page 8A
Scotch broom removal a Sisyphean task
David Snodgrass and his crew
work to contain invasive species
By ERICK BENGEL
EO Media Group
CANNON BEACH — It takes trained eyes and hours
of tedious physical labor to prevent Scotch broom — the
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ers and produces thousands of seeds — from overrunning
the sand dunes west of Chapman Point.
But, during the last 13 years, the Chapman Point
Homeowners Association has hired local contractors to
scale back the noxious, colonizing species to a level that
is increasingly manageable from year to year, according
to Ken McQuhae, a Chapman Point homeowner. For a
time, McQuhae himself pulled out the plants with the help
of a paid assistant.
Earlier this month, David Snodgrass, president and
co-owner of Dennis’ 7 Dees Landscaping & Garden Cen-
ters, and his three-man crew took their shovels out to the
See SCOTCH BROOM, Page 8A
ERICK BENGEL — EO Media Group
Miles Lawson, a crew member with Dennis’ 7 Dees in Sea-
side, uses a shovel to uproot Scotch broom growing west
of Chapman Point. In Newport, he pulled invasive species,
including Scotch broom, for a community-action agency.
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LONG BEACH, Wash. — Even
though the anonymous April 16
phone call threatening a mass-shoot-
ing at Long Beach Elementary
remained only that — a threat —
Ocean Beach School District admin-
istrators are using the experience to
re-examine how the district handles
lockdowns and emergency situa-
tions.
When the buildings went into
lockdown that afternoon, few par-
ents realized what was going on.
District administrators posted a
message on Facebook and on the
district website. E-mails went out
as well. But they had no way to
send out a mass alert to parents’
phones.
Now the district plans to install
communication systems that will
allow them to send out a mass alert
in the form of a phone call or a text
— much in the same way the coun-
ty is able to alert citizens of tsunami
warnings.
See LESSONS, Page 8A
House
sets rules
for police
cameras
By PETER WONG
Capital Bureau
SALEM — A negotiated bill will
set the rules for how police may use
body cameras to record their interac-
tions with the public.
Under the bill, which the House
Judiciary Committee approved on a
7-2 vote Tuesday, videos can be re-
leased if they are determined to be
in the public interest — but only if
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Portland is considering the issue,
and the Columbia County sheriff and
Hermiston police have decided to
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Committee Chairman Jeff Bark-
er, a Democrat from Aloha and a re-
tired Portland police lieutenant, said
House Bill 2571 does not require
agencies to use body cameras. He
said its intent is to set uniform rules
for agencies that choose to do so.
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“continuously” upon reasonable sus-
picion or probable cause that a crime
or violation is being committed. The
cameras can be turned off once an
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See CAMERAS, Page 8A