Freshmen dressed in assorted colors for Color Clash, a five-day competition from Feb. 27 to March 3. Held by the Class of 2026 officers, freshmen and teachers split into four teams — red, blue, yellow and green — competing for tickets to redeem food at a class-wide party. The event featured a week of themed days and concluded with games ranging from dodgeball to “Guess the Song.”

Inspired by a school-wide team competition from their time at Dilworth Elementary School, the Class of 2026 class officers hoped to introduce a tradition to mark their class’s first year on campus.

“I love the uniqueness of Color Clash, an event that’s never been done before,” said freshman Vihaan Patel, Class of 2026 vice president. “With Color Clash, we had freedom and no set guidelines.”

To kick the week off, each freshman received a wristband in their respective team’s color in their PE class. A random name generator was used to sort the freshmen into the four teams, each led by a freshman class officer. The next three days prompted them to “twin with a teammate,” “wear as many colors as you can” and “wear baby blue,” the freshman class color. 

Each day built anticipation for the series of games held in the gym during lunch on the final day. The games were dodgeball, Kahoot and a “Guess the Song” game. Cheers echoed through the gym as students eagerly rooted for their teams. 

“The freshmen came from different middle schools, so the main goals for Color Clash were unity, participation, and spirit,” Class of 2026 co-adviser Dave Herz said. “I think all three of those were achieved as the turnout on Friday was fantastic.”

Participants earned points through victories in the games on Friday and photo submissions of themselves in wacky spirit wear with the Lynbrook app. The blue team took home the victory following a week of close competition against the yellow team, who won second place ahead of the green team in third and and red team in fourth.

The class party took place in the cafeteria on March 8 where the blue team received donuts, and all teams watched “Ratatouille”and snacked on free chips, cookies and pizza together. All teams were invited to be inclusive of everyone, but celebrated the winning team.

Without a designated spirit committee, planning out the details of such a large-scale event was a huge undertaking for the class officers, who coordinated with the school administration, class advisers and the Lynbrook App team.

The event’s dates coincided with ASB Officer elections which caused some complications, but the class officers were able to adapt their promotional strategies to still garner participation. Explaining the game rules and managing the point reward system were other challenges officers had to work around. Despite these obstacles, the officers are pleased by the Color Clash turnout and thankful for the enthusiastic participation from the freshman class.

“On Friday, all the freshmen were really hyped and it was nice to see everyone so spirited and eager to compete,” Patel said. “Everyone had an incentive and a reason to participate, and they had fun.”

Encouraged by the success of the week, the class officers hope to establish Color Clash as an annual event and tradition for the Class of 2026. The officers look forward to how the event will evolve each year as they improve organization and promotion through other formats.

“Our main goal was just to have a larger scale event only for freshmen, especially in the second semester for people to enjoy,” said freshman Amy Tang, Class of 2026 President. “We’re really proud of the results as more people than we expected showed up, and it was great seeing people dress up all week and come out to the event on Friday.”