On February 11, 2017, the East Noble Bi-Phy-Chem team traveled to Purdue Northwestern, where we competed at the regional level of the Science Olympiad. There were 13 teams that attended the competition, and 15 people who went to the competition were from East Noble. East Noble’s head coach is Mr. Mark Liepe. There is a total of 23 events, which included Game On, Robot Arm, Optics, Hovercraft, Rocks and Minerals, Microbe Mission, and many more. Each relates to biology, chemistry, or physics.

Each event is scored and the top six scorers for those events receive a medal at the end of the day. At the end, no matter what place you earned, they add up all the scores from every event, and the team with the highest score wins the competition. The top four teams from both Division B and Division C (our division), would advance to the state level, held at Indiana University in Bloomington. For the past two years, East Noble has advanced to the state level, placing 4th both years, but have fallen short of earning a trophy, which is given to the top 3 teams. This year, that all changed. East Noble got 3rd place at the regional competition and earned its very first Science Olympiad trophy! This made everyone so excited, and we were proud of all the hard work and dedication that was put into this competition.

Preparation for this event began around December of last year. Many of the team members worked after school under Mr. Liepe’s supervision and his help and on their own individual time as well. Several events either required a lot of research from books and the internet while others required stuff to be built and competed with. Now that we have advanced, more time and effort will be put into our events to help prepare us for State, where we can add more information and fix errors that could have occurred at the regional level.

For this being our third year attending State, our team is experienced and knows what obstacles and stuff to be prepared for. We will compete at the best of our ability but mainly will have fun! Who knows; maybe someone will earn a State medal. The state competition for Science Olympiad is on March 18, 2017 at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Thank you to everyone who attended the regional level competition, and good luck at the state level competition. Knight Nation is behind you 100%!

Full results from the Regional Science Olympiad competition:

Astronomy: Tim Tew and Zach Lane, 6th
Dynamic Planet: Clayton Halbert and Madisyn Redman, 5th
Ecology: Natalie Vanderpool and Madisyn Redman, 6th
Electric Vehicle: Adam Dills and Zach Lane, 4th
Game On: Tim Tew and Ben Jansen, 5th
Hovercraft: Reilly Childers and Zach Lane, 6th
Invasive Species: Madisyn Redman and Natalie Vanderpool, 6th
Material Science: Kyra Warren and Zarna Patel, 3rd
Optics: Sahil Patel and Abbie Petterson, 6th
Robot Arm: Kyra Warren and Adam Dills, 2nd
Rocks and Minerals: Sahil Patel and Clayton Halbert, 2nd
Towers: Jack Jansen and Zach Lane, 5th
Write it/Do it: Kyra Warren and Adam Dills, 2nd
Overall Standing: 3rd, State Qualifier