Looking through his numerous documents on his laptop, Simon Nirenberg, senior, prepares for his astronomy event. Alongside his Science Olympiad teammates, he’s working in preparation for the Indiana State Tournament.
The team had come off a loss at Northwestern University, due to a temporary lack of competitors in a few events combined with the fact that Science Olympiad is scored based off of every single event. While a disappointing loss, the team is not worried about this occurring at State.
“Some of our core team in a variety of biology events are people who have more experience, especially the upperclassmen,” Lily Hestjean, senior, said.
With each event, there are different rules and regulations for the competitors to follow, so it is likely to see various studying styles in the meeting. For example, to study for his fossils event, Roy Lin, sophomore, uses a Discord chat bot programmed with various images of different fossils to practice identifying each.
“You have to memorize what they look like—to know every inch,” Roy said.
Other events are more about being the best, but more so at organizing.
“I primarily do study events, which are a combination of binders and ref sheets,” Simon said. “So in a ref sheet event, you’re given a single page of reference, which in my case, I tried to cram with as much information as possible. And then binders are like the same idea except you’re given a whole binder. So instead of condensing information down you kind of just throw it all in organizational structure.”
Build events, meanwhile, are basically what they sound like: building structures or robots.
“There’s built events like scrambler where you build something beforehand, and then you bring it to the competition and like test it outside,” said Femi Ololade, senior.
The team is working diligently to combat the tough challenges by way of competitors Carmel and Lake Central. The teams are in tight competition, each fighting for first place in events.
“We know currently at tournaments we’ve been to with teams like Carmel, like Lake Central: they’re better than us,” Mr. Keith Kozut, science teacher and club sponsor, said.
The goal of the team is to prepare more than Carmel or Lake Central can, so that they are able to gain more golds than the two others, ultimately taking first and claiming the spot at Nationals. Approaching State, many team members are confident in their ability.
“This year we have a good chance of beating Carmel, at State,” Advik Lalam, junior, said.”
