The MHS Science Olympiad team placed sixth at the Northern California State Finals after qualifying by placing third at the regional competition, Science Olympiad coach and science teacher Letta Meyer said. Meyer coaches Science Olympiad alongside science teachers Roberto Alvelais and Sharon Diep, Meyer said in an email.
The state competition took place on April 22, Alvelais said in an email. The MHS team earned medals in 11 out of 22 scored events, he said. Notable placements included junior Ava Woodhams and senior Shrey Chaudhary winning first place in the forestry event, and junior Andrew Ton and Science Olympiad co-captain and senior Abhishek Tyagi winning first place in Dynamic Planet, Alvelais added. Qualifying for the state competition was notable because MHS’ region is particularly competitive, he said.
“It’s actually harder than competing in state,” Alvelais said. “That’s kind of like your coach making practice a lot harder than an actual meet.”
Qualifying for the state competition at regionals was unexpected, Tyagi said. The last time MHS qualified for the state competition was in 2019, and adjusting to online competitions during the pandemic was challenging, he added. Returning to in-person competitions this year with little experience competing face-to-face posed the teams with a challenge, and he didn’t go into regionals with any expectations.
“Our team kind of described it (the regionals award ceremony) as ‘straight out of a movie,’” Tyagi said. “They said, ‘Third place goes to Milpitas.’ So we were like, ‘Wait, what? This actually just happened?’ We were all cheering; we were all screaming or crying.”
Thirty-six teams competed at regionals and the top four qualified for the state competition, Meyer said. Despite the MHS students needing to help set up and clean up the gym on the day of the regional competition, it still didn’t detract from their focus on the competition itself, she added. This year’s regional competition was held at MHS for the first time, Meyer said. On short notice and with little time to prepare, MHS was chosen as the new site primarily because of the large campus, she added.
“We lost our traditional site at the last minute,” Meyer said. “Once we were confirmed that we were hosting, we had about three weeks.”
At competitions, teams of 15 students from different schools compete against each other in 23 different events, Meyer said.
“The events are categorized in four categories,” Meyer said. “There’s knowledge events that are just straight tests. There’s hybrid events that have a build and a test. There are build events where they build something and then take it to the competition, and then there are lab events — hands-on lab events, where they have to do a lab at the competition as part of their test.”
All 23 events are split among the 15 students on each team, Meyer said. The specific teams can vary in each competition; MHS sent three teams to compete at regionals, but only the top team was able to qualify for the state competition, she added.
“They start in the summer when their events are released,” Meyer said. “The students practice on Saturdays and after school and work like crazy.”
The final level of competition after the state competition is nationals, but only the top team from each state advances to this stage, co-public relations officer and junior Jaina Gandhi said.
“California is such a big state, it’s actually split into two,” Gandhi said. “From states to Nationals, only one team from NorCal and then one team from SoCal would go.”
Persevering through online competitions was a major challenge, Gandhi said. Because these competitions were accessible nationally, it was difficult to place in events and it could be discouraging to not see results, she added. However, placing well at in-person competitions, such as Bird Science Olympiad (BirdSO), became a highlight of the season, she added.
“Our first trophy this season was going to BirdSO,” Gandhi said. “At the time, it was the first trophy we’d gotten in a while, and also it was the first travel competition that we’d been to in a bit, so that was a really special moment.”
The Science Olympiad team was very motivated and their sense of camaraderie helped drive them, Tyagi said.
“What kept me in SciOly was definitely that sense of belonging,” Tyagi said. “Something that we take pride in is trying to make everyone feel welcomed and accepted and trying to give everyone a chance to explore the events that they find enjoyable and feel included in our community.”
The students in Science Olympiad worked together well and always showed their support for each other, Alvelais said.
“They’re a very special group,” Alvelais said. “They worked really hard; they set a goal and went after it. They’re just kind of a special, magical group.”