The Science Olympiad team qualified for the State competition at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and made school history by placing in the top five at the State competition. The team has been preparing for State since they secured their spot at Regionals.

“We qualified for State at our regional competition at CLC in March by receiving second place! Leading up to that we participated in two practice invitationals to help us prepare,” said Science Olympiad sponsor Megan Finn.

Science Olympiad meets every Thursday to go over new content and prepare for upcoming competitions. The group had two events that helped them prepare for State.

“Teams usually meet once a week to go over new topics for study events, build/improve designs for the build events, and to practice experiments/learn procedures for the events. We also work on practice tests, which are recycled competition tests from previous years. Most Thursdays the whole team gets together to discuss scheduling for the competitions and which events need the most work based on the competition performances,” said varsity Science Olympiad member James Krebs.

A normal tournament has members rising bright and early to get to the competition site and compete in several events. After the events are completed, they wait for awards.

“The day usually starts strong, with events beginning at 7 a.m. and going until 3 p.m. Usually I have some events kind of early on and am usually done by midday, when I go and watch some other events or walk around the campus with friends. The day is pretty hectic in the beginning but then dies down as people all spread out to their different events,” said varsity Science Olympiad member Billy Lay.

The team placed fourth overall and also placed in several categories including second in Astronomy, fourth place in Disease Detectives, fourth place in Microbe Mission, second place in Optics, fourth place in Helicopters, fourth place in Mousetrap Vehicle and second place in Towers.