Science Olympiad State 2013

Well, like I mentioned yesterday, the state competition for Science Olympiad was today so I was with the team in Columbia. The competition has 20-30 events, which include a wide range of science topics (including forestry, optics, astronomy, and thermodynamics to name a few). The majority of the events are testing events so the students go in pairs to take a test on a subject. Not only would it be boring to watch, but the coaches can't spectate since there is a risk of cheating. There are a handful of events where students build items and their "competition" is showing their item off in front of the judges. The items to build this year included a robotic arm, an elastic-launched glider, and a "gravity vehicle" (it only uses gravity for its energy and is focused around precision rather than pure distance). The big one I wanted to watch was Boomilever, which is a wooden device that attaches to a wall via one bolt and has to hold a bucket with upwards of 30 lbs of sand. Our boomilever rocked it at the regional competition, not breaking under the full weight of the challenge. Oh, and our contraption is 21 grams "heavy". The two guys decided to use the same boomilever as regionals and based on their excellent design, it was able to hold up the full weight yet again. In the same time that my guys were adding sand to their bucket, three other teams each talk to a different judge, set up their boomilever, and had it snap under the weight of about half of the sand. It was definitely one of the most exciting parts of the day.

Unfortunately, I've run into situations with some of the clubs here where the students don't fully read the instructions and have a realization shortly before the deadline. This happened today with Water Quality and the students realized that they had to have a student-created hydrometer, which is basically a bulb and rod you submerse in water in order to judge the relative density for a mystery liquid to water. The students did have any supplies for making them, but we were able to scrounge around the equipment for other events. In the end, the hydrometer was a plastic pipette with random bits on the inside (including many chopped up zip tie bits), a nut on the outside shoved down to the bottom, and a rubber band super glued to the side (to make calibration marks). We also had students run across campus to find salt packets in order to calibrate the hydrometer to differing percentages of a salt solution. I will admit that I was pushing the students along, but I didn't want to take over the project because 1) that would be cheating and 2) the students need to do it for themselves. It's situations like these that make me happy that they are being creative yet thoughtful, yet make me facepalm myself since it seems like this situation happens too often for its own good. While typing this, I thought to the Apollo 13 crisis and how the engineers on Earth had to create a solution to a problem only using a box of scraps. If my students were given a box of scraps... I'd be intrigued as to what they would come up with.

Since the state competition is notably more difficult than regionals, I wasn't expecting any big trophy or a mess of medals. There are high schools in Kansas City and St Louis that are the big dogs and they were definitely in full force this year. I am happy to report that the students finished in the top 5 in 5 different events. (The past two years, we have been recognized in the top 5 for only 2 events, so it's a step up.) The Boomilever got 3rd place, which meant that two other teams had a device that could hold the full weight and was lighter than our boomilever. Our boomilever builder admitted that our design could have been shaved down a little, but he seemed a little bummed in the moment. Looking at the results, I dubbed one of my seniors our MVP because his three events were three of the five that were recognized at the award ceremony. This included Technical Problem Solving, where our team won first out of the whole state. The competition is at Mizzou (University of Missouri-Columbia) and that event was one of the handful that Mizzou had scholarships for the winners. Definitely another highlight to the day.

We had some hiccups, particularly to start the day off (my GPS wanted me to drive on sidewalks, and we were waiting at the wrong registration building for 30 minutes), but once we got rolling, it ended up being a pretty good day. Today's holidays fit in pretty nicely with me being at Science Olympiad. The first one is Student Athlete Day, and while my students were participating in a physical sport, I still feel like they should be recognized for the work they put into organizations like Science Olympiad and FIRST Robotics. The other holiday is Drowsy Driver's Awareness Day. The drive between Columbia and Maryville is 3-4 hours and after an early morning and a long day, I've had some long boring drives where all the students are passed out in exhaustion. I was a little worried about today in particular and while the students did take naps for the first 2/3rds of the trip, I ended up lip syncing with the radio and having a grand old time, all without feeling sleepy really.

Speaking of sleep though, I definitely need to catch up on it. Hopefully it's another gorgeous day tomorrow. See you then!