On Saturday, January 31^st, East Noble’s Bi-Phy-Chem team traveled all the way to Purdue University Calumet to compete at the regional level of the Science Olympiad. The Science Olympiad is a series of competitions that are revolved around either biology, chemistry, or physics. These competitions included anywhere from studying fossils to doing a full chemistry lab to building airplanes and air launchers.

Each event is scored and the highest 6 scorers for those events were awarded medals at the end of the day, and to score teams, all scores from every event were added together and the teams with the highest scores won. The top 4 teams based on total score would advance to the State level, and East Noble placed 4^th, meaning that they were one of the advancing teams. This is the first time the team has ever advanced to State, and everyone was very excited.

“Did they say East Noble 4^th?  I can’t believe we are advancing!  We have too many new people to advance the state science Olympiad!” commented Mark Liepe, East Noble’s coach. With only 15 competitors allowed to compete in the Olympiad, 8 of East Noble’s competitors were first-time participants, which is a huge accomplishment due to how daunting some of the competitions can be and that 2 of the 7 teams that participated at Purdue Calumet’s Regional went on to compete at the National level last year.

Preparations for this event began for East Noble just before Christmas Break, and for many events, especially the events that required building, many of the competitors worked until the last minute on their projects, including when they had down time at the competition itself.

“Other schools prepare many months for this.  With 2 months to prepare, we could be equal to some of those schools if we commit to it!” explained Liepe. With most of the basic ideas and basic structures accomplished on the building events, small improvements can be made with much more thought and much more precision since the competitors will have more time to work on them.

During the medaling ceremony, the top 6 out of 7 teams from each event received their awards, and every single one of East Noble’s competitors won at least one medal, with some taking home 2 and 3 medals for their events. Some notable finishes included Rachel Skurner and Katie Lane, who took 4^th place in their anatomy event, and Sahil Patel and Abbie Peterson, two first-time competitors, who also earned 4^th place in their protein modeling event.

With many competitors experiencing the Science Olympiad for the first time and with everyone being rushed for time, East Noble’s Bi-Phy-Chem team had a fantastic performance and are already gearing up for their trip down to Indiana University on March 21^st for their first-ever State competition!

Full results from the competition:

Air Trajectory: Zach Lane and Reilly Childers, 5^th

Anatomy: Katie Lane and Rachel Skurner, 4^th

Bridge Building: Sam Sturgis and Zach Lane, 5^th

Chemistry Lab: Haley Schroeder and Kaelyn Bender, 5^th

Compound Machines: Devin Gingerich and Sam Sturgis, 5^th

Disease Detectives: Rachel Skurner and Haley Schroeder, 6^th

Entomology: Katie Lane and Karly Kandel, 6^th

Experimental Design: Caleb Larson and Sam Sturgis, 6^th

Green Generation: Tim Tew and Abbie Peterson, 6^th

Protein Modeling: Sahil Patel and Abbie Peterson, 4^th

Scrambler: Devin Gingerich and Kyra Warren, 6^th

Technical Problem Solving: Katie Lane and Karly Kandel, 4^th

Wright Stuff: Tim Tew and Abbie Peterson, 6^th

Overall Standing: 4^th, State Qualifier