By Katie Thompson
Managing Editor
Channeling their inner math-lete, bio-lete, chem-lete and all around science athlete, Mira Costa’s new Science Olympiad team challenged 35 other high schools at the Los Angeles Regional Science Olympiad Competition at CSU Los Angeles.
The all-day competition took place March 6 and was Costa’s first time competing in the Science Olympics.
Finishing 20 out of 36 overall, the 11 members who comprised Costa’s Science Olympiad Club were led by the club’s adviser, biology and science teacher Roberto Calderon, and competed in numerous challenges.
“In the Forensics challenge, we worked to identify who committed the crime by looking at powders and films from the scene,” team member sophomore Marissa Knell said. “We were given fake evidence and had to solve it.”
In addition to forensic competitions, team members competed in biology, chemistry, physics, engineering and challenges that tested their ability to draw, create, solve and build. Groups created a working mousetrap car, built a rocket, and erected an architecturally sound balsa wood bridge that holds 60 pounds.
“We all worked on building the bridge together. That challenge involved the whole team, but sometimes we split into groups to compete in the other challenges at the same time,” club co-president sophomore Erin Weldon said.
Team membes say one of their most memorable challenges was the Rube Goldberg station, where each team designed and created an eight-step, Rube Goldberg device, a contraption that completes tasks in a series of smaller steps.
“We accidentally short circuited the car batteries incorrectly so on the second step, a wire caught on fire,” club co-president sophomore Jonathan Colen said.
The team took 20th place overall. Individually, Weldon and Colen won third place in the ornithology competition.
“It was difficult because some of the other schools have Science Olympiad as a class, so they get to practice every day, but ours is just a club,” Calderon said.
Weldon and Colen first brought the club to Mira Costa this year in order to continue the competition from Hermosa Valley, where several of the club’s members began participating competitively. Originally a part of the pre-existing Science Club, they branched off so they could focus all of their attention solely on the competition.
“John and I had to organize the whole club,” Weldon said. “The first year is always the hardest because you don’t have the experience of past years to help you.”
The club met twice a week at lunch to prepare for the competition and refresh knowledge on all topics. Now, the club will focus on fundraising events to earn money and support for next year’s competition.
The club is preparing a night at two local Manhattan Beach restaurants, Mama D’s and Jamba Juice, in which a portion of sales will be given to the club. In addition to fundraising, the club said it wants to promote science by highlighting interesting aspects of biology, chemistry and physics classes in the community.
“We’re getting a booth at the Pennekemp Science Fair, and we will raise funds by holding cool chemistry demonstrations for the students,” Weldon said. “We want to inspire the younger kids to continue in science and show them that high school students still do science and cool stuff.”
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