Reported by Cassie Tammy Wang
Science Olympiad is an American team competition in which students compete in 23 events pertaining to various scientific disciplines, including earth science, biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Over 7,800 middle school and high school teams from 50 U.S. states compete each year.
There are multiple levels of competition: invitational, regional, state, and national. Invitational tournaments, run by high schools and universities, are unofficial tournaments and serve as practice for regional and state competitions. Teams that excel at regional competitions advance to the state level; the top one or two teams from each state (depending on the state) then advance the national level.
Winners later receive several kinds of awards, including medals, trophies and plaques, as well as scholarships. Science Olympiad is not associated with the International Science Olympiads, which follow a completely different format and set of rules.
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Event Name & Description (2018-2019)
Anatomy and Physiology: Teams will answer questions about the anatomy and physiology of the cardiovascular, lymphatic and excretory systems. Topics may include diseases in those systems as well as the general anatomy and function of each system. The event may be run in stations, as a PowerPoint exam, or administered as a test packet. Teams are allowed to bring writing utensils, two non-programmable non-graphing calculators, and one double-sided page of notes containing information in any form from any source.
Astronomy: Teams will answer questions on stellar evolution in normal and starburst galaxies. Specifically, questions involve in math and physics relating to the year’s topic mentioned in the 2019 rule book. Teams may use either laptops or binders to reference during the test.
Boomilever: Teams will construct a boomilever that supports the most weight in sand as well as meet certain criteria.
Chemistry Lab: “Chemistry Lab is an event where participants must learn the respective year’s selected aspects of chemistry and perform a lab or a set of labs regarding those topics.”
Circuit Lab: Participants must complete tasks and answer questions about electricity and magnetism
Code Busters: Teams will cryptanalyze (decode) encrypted messages using cryptanalysis techniques and show skill with advanced ciphers by encrypting or decrypting a message.
Disease Detectives: Disease Detectives is generally a written exam, testing knowledge of Epidemiology and immunity. Each year the subjects rotate around different fields of the study, ensuring no student will have the same field twice while participating in any one division.
Dynamic Planet: Students will use process skills to complete tasks related to glaciers, glaciation and long-term climate change.
Experimental Design: Teams will design an experiment using a selected assortment of equipment and objects during the 50-minute session, and are scored on the thoroughness and quality of their lab report.
Fermi Questions: A Fermi Question is a science related question that seeks a fast, rough estimate of a quantity which is difficult or impossible to measure directly. Teams will take a test consisting of Fermi questions. Answers will be estimated within an order of magnitude recorded in powers of 10.
Forensics: “Forensics … involves identification of powders, polymers, fibers, and hair samples, blood serum and fingerprint analysis, and interpretation of chromatography. Given a scenario and some possible suspects, students will perform a series of tests. These tests, along with other evidence or test results, will be used to solve a crime.”
Fossils: Teams demonstrate their knowledge of ancient life by completing selected tasks at a series of stations including but not limited to fossil identification, answering questions about classification, habitat, ecologic relationships, behaviors, environmental adaptations and the use of fossils to date and correlate rock units.
Geologic Mapping: Teams will demonstrate understanding in the construction and use of topographic maps, geologic maps, and cross sections, and their use in forming interpretations regarding subsurface structures and geohazard risks.
Herpetology: Teams will deal with the identification and life science of different specimens of amphibians and reptiles.
Mission Possible: Teams will design and test a machine to perform a specific task.
Mousetrap Vehicle: Teams will design, build and test a vehicle using one mousetrap as the sole means of propulsion to reach a target as quickly, accurately and in as little time as possible.
Protein Modeling: Students will use computer visualization and online resources to construct physical models of the CRISPR Cas9 protein that is being engineered to edit plant and animal cell genomes, and answer a series of questions about the chemistry of protein folding and the interaction of structure and function for model proteins.
Sounds of Music: Teams must construct and tune one device prior to the tournament based on a 12-tone equal tempered scale and complete a written test on the physics of sound.
Thermodynamics: Teams must construct an insulated device prior to the tournament that is designed to retain heat. Teams must also complete a written test on thermodynamic concepts.
Water Quality: Participants will be assessed on their understanding and evaluation of aquatic environments.
Wright Stuff: Teams will build, test, and fly a monoplane.
Write It Do It: One team member will attempt to build a device using only the instructions written by their teammate, who tries to describe a pre-built device. The team with the device closest to the original will win.
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Greater Princeton AYLUS (GPA) President Cassie Tammy Wang and member Allen Zhang, two students of the West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South (WWP HSS), have been actively involved in the school “Science Olympiad Team” planning and testing events since late 2018. Cassie and Allen recently participated two Science Olympiad Invitational Competitions along with their WWP HSS team members, leading the “Mousetrap Vehicle”, “Fossils”, “Mission Possible”, and “Herpetology” teams, respectively. The first competition was the “Battle at the Valley Forge (BVF)” in Pennsylvania, and the other was “Yale Undergraduate Science Olympiad Invitational (YUSO)” on the Yale University campus in Connecticut, hosted on January 12th and 26th, 2019, respectively.
During the 2 all day events, at BVF, the WWP HSS Team proudly won the first place among 48 teams; while at YUSO, the WWP HSS Team won the second place among 46 teams, with the first place taken by one of its strongest competitors, the WWP HSN (north) Team. More invitational competitions are still coming in February before the State Level Competition to take place in mid March.
Besides bringing home Medals and Trophies, being proud GPA leaders, Cassie Tammy Wang and Allen Zhang did help promote the American Team Spirit of “Science Olympiad” during the whole process of competitions, building up team leaderships. They will continue doing so in the upcoming months with the goal of National for their beloved team.
