The Science Olympiad team competed in the state qualifier tournament Feb. 2 at Eastview High School in Apple Valley. The team placed sixth in the event and will move on to the state competition. During the competition, the team hoped for the best possible result but didn’t know how well they’d perform. “I’m not sure [how the team will do] because I don’t know how the majority of the events are going, so we’ll see,” junior Sam Konstan said.

Junior Maya Choi, said “We’re not entirely sure how we’re doing at the moment. We have a lot of really smart kids this year, so we’re gonna be fine.”

At the award ceremony, SPA’s team made it to the State competition by placing sixth, with seniors Abdel Mokbel and Asher Sobotka placed first in the Machines event, Mokbel and senior Sameer Bijwadia placed first in Astronomy, and seniors Richard Chang and Nathan Sobotka in second place for Chem Lab. 

In the three months before the event, the members of the Science Alliance club had prepared extensively for the state qualifiers. “People have built apparatuses, they’ve taken notes… , they’ve taken practice tests, they’ve done practice problems,” said senior Richard Chang, one of the team’s student leaders. The team will need to prepare even more for the state tournament. “There’s some additional content for some of the events… and there’s some new events that weren’t at the regional competition,” said Chang.

Cathleen Drilling, one of Science Alliance’s faculty advisors, said that she was proud of the effort put in by student leaders Melissa Nie, Sameer Bijwadia, and Richard Chang. Drilling said, “They have organized the teams, the paperwork, training younger students. They really do a lot.” 

The state competition will be on Saturday, March 7, at Bethel University.