The Manhattan High Science Olympiad team begins their trek to the Kansas State tournament. With a strong showing at the Regional tournament with a second place finish, all that is on their minds is State.

“We went to Regionals and placed second. We were off of first by only 10 points,” sophomore Mason Gish said. “We have State coming up April 6 and so we’ve been preparing for that.”

Only 15 members from the team are allowed to go to the State tournament, so some team members have had their seasons wrapped up.

“I joined midway through the season, and I really enjoyed it,” sophomore Enoch Wang said. “My main event is ChemLab, and I’ve done other events like FERMI questions and Optics.”

Science Olympiad is an event with multiple hands-on individual events to let each participant explore their science side. Some of the most anticipated events are scrambler, trajectory, and code busters.

“I’m part of build events, so I’ve been tweaking our builds we’ve made throughout the season, but other people have been studying for their study events because they have to take tests,” Gish said.

The club focuses on learning and creating things that have to do with STEM.

“My event is flight, and our task is to create this plane that is powered by a rubber band and our goal is to get it to fly for as long as we can, so we make it do circles around the gym,” Gish said.

The Science Olympiad team is a very inclusive and welcoming community, who would love to have new members for the team’s many events next year.

“Science Olympiad is a great community, and [head coach] Andresen is a great teacher,” Wang said. “The meets are also super fun, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

Wish the team luck for the State tournament on April 6 at Wichita State University.