By Kelly Lee
Staff Writer
Junior Steven Shi and sophomore Matthew Kong wind up their rubber-powered aircraft in preparation for their Flight event. Their
efforts secured them second place out of 32 teams at the Southern California Science Olympiad State Tournament.
Science Olympiad placed seventh out of 32 Division C schools in the South California State Tournament at the California Institute of Technology on April 6. Concentration pierced the air as students hastily prepared their builds, finalized notes and flipped through their flashcards as they anticipated their events, each team vying for the title of state champions.
Science Olympiad previously took third place out of 59 schools in their regional competition on March 2. Throughout the year, they placed third out of 27 schools at the Great Wolfpack Invite, first out of 80 teams in the BirdSO competition, third place at the Wilson Invitational and competed at the Golden Gate Invitational.
“Our team did well, but there’s just a lot of other good teams that were competing this season this year,” coach and Biology teacher Chris Cunningham said. “Even though we didn’t do as well as last year, I think that our students did as best as they could and I’m happy about that.”
The competitions started at 8:30 a.m., ending with an awards ceremony from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. They placed in the top three in three events: “Air Trajectory,” “ Flight” and “Wind Power” and in the top 10 in six other events. The top six competitors or teams in each event received a medal. Freshmen Jasmine Lee and Rylan Chau, sophomores Bright Xu, Neil Hu and Matthew Kong, juniors Steven Shi and Isa Wu and seniors Ellen Tang, Ethan Li, Hayley Tang and Tedd Hong medaled.
“Our team has been on a pretty consistent incline in our placings and our overall performance as a team,” junior Lauren Tan said. “I just want to keep climbing and bringing us as close as we can to our top competitors and hopefully surpass them sometime in the future.”
As the captains, seniors Ethan Li and Keilana Pang plan meetings, host bonding events and encourage members. The team’s coaches Board of Education member Vinson Bell, Cunningham and AP Physics teacher Kevin Slattery, help supervise and support the team. Science Olympiad met weekly after school to study and build for the competition.
“I do lab and testing events and I prepared by watching a lot of anatomy videos on YouTube and taking a lot of practice tests,” Tan said. “We have a whole Google Drive folder full of acquired tests from past seasons that was good for having an idea of what that test was going to look like for the competition.”
The team is proctoring the Los Angeles Elementary Science Olympiad tournament at TCHS on April 27, 2024. The members wrote tests and plan to supervise the events, grading and managing third to sixth graders from across the region.
Aspiring members can try out for the team at the beginning of next year by attending the information meeting and filling out an application form. They must take event tests and optionally present a build proposal. The second round of tryouts consists of student interviews.
“I know a lot of them put a lot of pressure on themselves and their teammates to do well, but I think it’s important for them to compete, do the best they can and have fun while they’re doing it,” Cunningham said. “My goal for the team is to enjoy the process, enjoy competing and hopefully learn something through what they are doing that they can apply later on in their careers or in the future.”