Last year, Manhattan High’s Science Olympiad team strived to a first place win at the regional competition and took second place at State.

“We were so close, we were really, really close to winning. I think [a win] is achievable,” senior Danny Aramouni said.

Aramouni has been a part of the team since his sophomore year. His junior year he and the team had high hopes for the state competition but, this year, there are high expectations and even higher hopes.

“I would really like to see the team win first place at the state competition,” coach Richard Nelson said. “I think it’s very achievable. Of course that’s the goal of most teams in the states, but the fact that the past few years our team has been really strong so we have a good chance.”

This year is also the start of a new class, Honors Science Investigations.

“The class, in one sense, has really improved our ability to communicate with the students and work through this process. We’re further along in this process than we’ve ever been in previous years. The hard part is incorporating the students who aren’t in the class with the students who are in the class,” Nelson said. “The students that aren’t in the class, I think, are finding it a little more challenging to figure out when to practice and when to get with their partners. I think we’ll eventually work that out but right now I think some of those students may struggle for a little bit until they can figure out a schedule.”

Junior Rebekah Hennesey is one of the students in the class and on the team.

“We’ve figured out what all our events are and so we’re using our class time to specialize and get an idea of what we’re going to plan and when we’re going to study what,” Hennesey said. “It’s really helpful if you have your partner in the class because you get to see them on a regular basis and you’re able to spend more time with the people you don’t have [as partners] in the class. We still meet on Saturdays once a month and sometimes after school…it makes it a lot easier. It’s working really well I think.”

Though his schedule didn’t allow him to take the class, Aramouni agrees.

“I feel like the class should definitely help us a lot. I actually feel like I’m missing quite a bit not being on the class. I’m coming in once or twice a week and it’s working pretty well. I think we have a pretty solid team this year too…” Aramouni said. “One of the downsides of having a class is that we don’t meet as a whole group every Saturday anymore, we just meet once a month and the last team meeting, the only one so far, I was taking the SAT so I don’t really know what everyone else is doing.”

Despite the conflicts, the class has brought new opportunities for the team.

“I think we are suffering a bit from the first year of working the kinks out – typical of any new course, but it’s going pretty well I think,” Nelson said.

Students have already reviewed foundational material such as significant digits, scientific notation and metrics and are even looking to do more competitions this year to give students who are in the class but not on the team a chance to compete.

“Since we’re ahead of the game overall and the quality of our student members is great, I feel really good about our opportunities to do well [in competitions],” Nelson said. “Last year’s team did extremely well so to do better than that would be a challenge, but I feel good about our chances because of the quality of the students that we have and the opportunities the class has given us this year. Because of still trying to figure out the students who aren’t in the class and how they’re going to have to dovetail in with the students in the class… I still feel a little anxious with that regard but I think overall, we’re further ahead than previous years.”

With the addition of the class and the 15 students beginning to work out their events, the year has officially begun for Science Olympiad.

“It seems like it’s going to be a really good year. We have a great group of people,” Hennesey said.

And for students, it’s another opportunity to take State. “I want to go to Nationals. I really want to go to Nationals. It’s a long way to go but I really want to go to Nationals,” Aramouni said.