Gotta brag a little about my son
The previous thread was lost with the crash so here is a re-post with some more info.
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My son's Science Olympiad Team got first place in the state competition in April at the School of Mines. They are now off to Nationals in Florida next month. While he didn't medal in any events today he placed 6th or better in all of his events which gave his team numerous points for the overall win. This has been his goal ever since he joined the team 3 years ago.
They won the regional event a few months ago that allowed them to go to the state event today.
This is in addition to being in NJHS, playing basketball on his school team and a competitive traveling team, football, spring flag football, track, and keeping straight As with almost all honor classes.
I couldn't be prouder.
There are 30 events ranging from simple tests to the building of devices. He competes in 4 events. You can win an event individually and that gives your team points. Just like a track meet. He competes in Towers, Forestry, Experimental Design, and Water Quality.
Towers is to build a tower out of wood to meet specifications and have the best ratio of weight held vs weight of the tower.
Forestry is a combination of a test and identifying live samples.
Experimental Design is they give you a box of supplies and you have to design an experiment and perform it.
Water Quality is another combo of a test and live samples.
The national competition was last weekend and all went well. We took advantage of the situation to make a little vacation out of the trip.
Between the high school and middle school participants there were about 1,000 kids there.
My son's best finish was 10th place in Forestry. Didn't do too well in Towers. He built his tower right to the limit of the specifications, didn't anticipate that the wood would swell from the high humidity in Florida, so when he went to check it in it was out of spec. They still let him test it but couldn't place because it was out of spec, so technically he got last. It weighed just under 12 grams and held 14 kilograms of weight before it broke. They took slow motion video of the test and after an engineer reviewed the video with each competitor so they could see and understand where and why they broke. He also made recommendations on how the designs could be improved.
Some of his other team members finished in 1st place and 6th place, the best places above his 10th place. Overall they placed 30th as a team. You can tell many of the teams are very dedicated to the event. The winning high school and middle school teams were from the same town in Ohio and they have both won the national title 3 or 4 years in a row. His coach did not expect to win and approaches the nationals as a total experience and more of a fun way to end the season.
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