Let’s State the obvious, Science Olympiad rocks

Otis Mazurkiewicz, Staff Writer

Fueled by fun and Mediterranean food, the Manhattan High School Science Olympiad team crushed it at the SciOly State tournament at Wichita State University. Participating in many events, Manhattan went home in third place from the April 1 event. The team stayed in Wichita for two days to put their skills to the test.

Junior Lane Burgett is a member of the Manhattan High School Science Olympiad team. Burgett participated in three events at State: Code Busters, Detector Building and Wi-Fi Lab. He thought State went quite well as a learning experience.

“We got third place, as I’m sure we already talked about,” Burgett said. “We had two very large KC schools beat us, so we’re definitely making a pretty good appearance overall.” 

Senior Allie Cloyd is also a member of the Science Olympiad team. Cloyd thought that State went well too.

 “We should all be proud of how the team did. It ended up being pretty fun. Some unexpected things happened, but overall, it was a good experience,” Cloyd said.

 She also participated in three events, those being the Minerals event, Forestry event and the Flight event.

Burgett’s favorite event was Detective Building, mainly because of all of the “nerds” there. He explains how the detective event works.

 “So basically, my partner and I, we have to build a scale, like a science room, except we build a scale and we can’t copy that design,” Burgett said. 

From there, Burgett and his event partner are assigned with creating each part necessary towards the build, followed by ensuring that the model can measure unknown masses supplied by the event overseers. These events are certainly complex, however they help improve the scientific skills of students who participate in them. Burgett’s favorite part of state was getting to spend time with friends.

 “We went to a Mediterranean grille, which was really fun to experience with all these people,” Burgett said.

Cloyd’s favorite event was Rocks and Minerals. She originally had no choice but to participate in the event, but as she went through the event, she began to take a liking for the event.

 “I ended up really liking and learning more about Geology over the course of this year. And I just kind of fell into it, but it ended up being really fun and I enjoy it,” Cloyd said. 

She thought that the most challenging part of going to state was the anticipation of how well the tests would be written for events. Cloyd explains how the quality of tests are quite spontaneous. 

“Ideally you have experts writing the test, but that isn’t always the case. You just gotta hope that it’s good,” Cloyd said.

 Her favorite part of going to state was “the whole thing.” She enjoyed getting to spend the day at a university campus, while hanging with friends and watching other people’s events. 

“Science Olympiad was maybe a little bit more organized this year, and I think it was nice how that reflected in how state worked out this time,” Cloyd said.