Following months of hard work and preparation, about 17 SDA students competed in the San Diego Regional Olympiad Competition held on Feb. 17 at University City High School.

When students arrived at the event, they were met with a crowd of science enthusiasts. “You walk into University City High School and you see people walking around, and they’ve all got different school T-shirts on….It’s fairly small but busier than you’d expect,” said senior Kirstin Mueller, who has participated in Science Olympiad since 8th grade.

SDA students competed–individually, in paris and in groups– in an array of different events testing their ability in a variety of scientific fields.

According to senior Delilah Forest, who is the club’s co-president, some events such as Electric Vehicle and Write it. Do it,were more hands on.

She said Electric Vehicle entailed making an electric car from scratch that you have to calibrate “to go a certain distance.” She explained that “you had to be able to, in the moment, make it go whatever distance they told you, and it had to stop…as close as possible to the end point. And, you got scored based on that.”

Senior Elizabeth Anderson explained that Write it. Do it, “is basically where one of the partners goes into a room and views an object that has a bunch of…different objects on it like a foam block with different pipe cleaners….And, you write instructions [without drawing the structure], and then those instructions are given to the next partner. And…, [they have] 20 minutes to…build the thing from scratch,” she said.

Forest also explained that other events required contestants to take a multiple choice test. Such events included Microbe Mission and Astronomy.

According to Mueller, in the Astronomy event, competitors were “given a subject area to to focus on prior to the test, like white dwarfs, planetary nebulae, a series of interstellar objects…. And, then you walk in and take a multiple choice test that’s about 50-60 questions.”

Forensics adopted this multiple choice test format, but it required students to decipher the truth behind a crime scene and find out “who…the murderer was,” according to Forest.

Overall, Anderson said the fun lies most in the process of building, though she found the experience of competing to be incredibly rewarding.

“We placed, which is not a usual occurrence…That was really exciting. We stayed for the award ceremony….It was just a lot of fun!” said Anderson enthusiastically.

Forest added that Science Olympiad is “very exciting…because there are kids from all sorts of schools throughout the county there, and you get… to meet all sorts of new people…[Despite the competition], people are still really friendly.”

Following a long day of competition, seniors Elizabeth Anderson, Hana Chen, Megan Levan, Kirstin Mueller and Delilah Forest placed. They earned fifth and 12th place in Electric Vehicle, third place in Write it. Do it, ninth place in Forensics, and 18th place in Microbe Mission, according to Forest.