The Science Olympiad will advance two of their top teams to the state competition, thanks to their hard work at Regionals, which took place at Seattle Central Community College on Feb. 28.
The competition consisted of 23 different events designed to test a wide variety of skills and interests. Teams of two to three people compete in each event.
“There are building events where you pre-build your models and test them on competition day,” senior Amanda Tsai said. “There are also events that include labs or hands-on activities. Some events include only a testing section, but testing will sometimes be paired with building or lab events.”
Teamwork and communication are very important elements in the teams’ success.
“Students generally work together in pairs and collaboratively prepare for three to four events for the competition,” Science Olympiad adviser Tom Wojtkowiak said. “We did well this year thanks to the dedicated student leadership.”
The dedication of the students stems from their passion for science and their desire to expand their knowledge.
“I joined [Science Olympiad] because I thought it would be fun and interesting,” Tsai said. “A lot of the events aren’t the typical activities you’d do in class, but they still correlate with what you’re learning about at the moment.”
The first place winners were senior Gunnar Allemeier and junior Ariel Stiber in ‘Write It, Do It’, seniors Maia Stiber and Zhanpei Fang in ‘Astronomy’, seniors Arko Banik, Adharsh Ranganathan and sophomore Jason Zhu in ‘Experimental Design’, seniors Ryan Chin, Elon Shiu and Tsai in ‘Mission Impossible’, senior Hieu Do and sophomore Elaine Xiong in ‘Protein Modeling’, and junior Corrina Lee and sophomore Bill Zhou in ‘Entomology.’
“We definitely wanted to win but we weren’t expecting it,” junior and Science Olympiad co-captain Ariel Stiber said. “Because of that, it made every event award a lot more special and I was really proud of our overall team awards. We came together as a team to do our best and it paid off.”
The two teams, Black and Gold, won first and fourth place respectively. This means that both teams qualified for state. The state competition will be held on April 18, at Highline College in Des Moines.
