The Emerson High School Science Olympiad team planned to compete in the District Scioly Competition on February 24, but because of unintended complications such as competition mismanagement they were unable to attend. Although it was a disappointment to much of the team after putting in tens of hours, they were happy to be part of Science Olympiad throughout the year.

“Even though we weren’t able to attend the competition, my favorite parts of Science Olympiad throughout the year would have to be the hands-on nature of the competition and the opportunity to explore various sciences”, Junior Science Olympiad Officer Ashwika Rajnikanth said.

The Science Olympiad is an academic tournament in which students prepare 1-2 team-based events to compete in. These events are about various sciences, such as aerospace, biology, and chemistry, which really helps a student increase their understanding and internet of science as a whole. Although the team wasn’t able to compete, they were excited to show off their hard work.

Senior Andrew Nam was especially interested in showing the judges his build event, which he worked on tirelessly to construct.

“It’s disappointing we couldn’t go to the District competition, but I still learned a lot through the entire process,” Nam said. “My interest is related to civil engineering and architecture which requires some skills on building, designing, and engineering. With those skills, I built a project for my events in ‘Scrambler’ and ‘Bridge’.”

Getting the build events ready was a challenge for the competitors, but the officer team had a much bigger responsibility in their hands. They had to build team-cohesiveness, camaraderie, and responsibility among all the members while also managing the competition’s logistics.

“I put a lot of effort into the Science Olympiad by creating a strong team based off of competitors’ strong suits, coordinating with our sponsor, and guiding others in setting parameters for their own events,” Senior Co-President Leina Beshir said. “Although it was both extremely unfortunate we weren’t able to attend the district competition despite all the work we put in, it was a great learning opportunity for everyone.” 

Despite the setbacks, the team remains hopeful for next year and are motivated to work even harder.

“I’m hopeful to see Emerson’s Science Olympiad Team compete next year despite all the setbacks, but we’ll come back stronger,” said Nam.