North team earns trip to national Science Olympiad

Mar 17, 2013 (Herald-Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Bloomington High School North placed second at Saturday's Indiana State Science Olympiad competition, earning the Cougar team a trip to the national competition May 17-18 at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

Bloomington High School South narrowly missed the cut, placing third overall at Saturday's event. The top two teams go to the national competition.

In the middle school division, Tri-North placed fifth and Jackson Creek seventh overall.

SEE PHOTO GALLERY Students from 30 middle schools and 30 high schools filled classrooms across Indiana University's campus, showing off skills in chemistry, forensics and engineering, among others, during a full day of tests, experiments and demonstrations at this year's state competition.

North students had smiles on their faces after flying their small glider in a competition. Students shot the glider in the air, using a rubber band and launcher, hoping that it would float to the ground as slowly as possible.

The two best times are added together to get the final score.

"It was pretty good," said Kayla Mitchell, a junior at North, of her team's flights. "We got pretty good times." Some students were not as happy about the outcome of their events.

Students from Tri-North Middle School slumped into Ballantine Hall to join the rest of the team after the helicopter flight.

"Oh no," said Tri-North's Coach Martha Bowman as students drew an angry face on a chalkboard. Traditionally, students draw smiling or frowning faces beside event names to let coaches and teammates know how well they thought competitions went.

But these are not necessarily good indications of how the events went, Bowman said.

"A lot of the really, really prepared kids come out feeling discouraged, and they find out later that they did well," she said.

Kids begin preparing as soon as September for the Science Olympiad, working after school and outside of class to learn about the subjects that may or may not be covered in their normal science classes.

Zane Grube, an eighth-grader at Jackson Creek Middle School, designed and helped build a vehicle using one or two mousetraps to push the vehicle forward. He said he studied what former students built in the past, and tried to improve the design.

"I didn't like some of the things they did last year," Grube said.

"He definitely took last year's and made it better," said Nancy Martin, Jackson Creek's coach.

Grube's partner in the event, Sam Norrell, then ran tests to determine the best way to control the vehicle. Norrell said the vehicle was finished the day of the regional Science Olympiad, and the team spent three weeks tweaking it to prepare for the state competition.

The challenge is what keeps many students coming back to Science Olympiad, regardless of how well they do at the event.

"In school, for kids who are very capable, they don't have anything to challenge them; this challenges them," said Tom Sanders, coordinator of the elastic-launch glider event at Saturday's competition.

There's a camaraderie about the Science Olympiad that draws many students to it as well, according to Kirstin Milks, assistant coach for South's team.

"Very few people do science fair, because they get to be on a team at Science Olympiad," Milks said.

------ Results for local schools: Tri-North -- Placed 5th overall and won the following medals: 1st place in Dynamic Planet 1st in Road Scholar 3rd in Rotor Egg Drop 4th in Keep the Heat 5th in Forestry 5th in Mousetrap Vehicles 5th in Reach for the Stars Jackson Creek -- Placed 7th overall and won the following medals: 2nd place in Forestry 1st place in Metric Mastery 4th place in Shock Value Bloomington North -- Placed 2nd overall and has qualified for the National Science Olympiad Tournament at Wright State University 1st in Disease Detectives 1st in Remote Sensing 2nd in Thermodynamics 2nd in Water Quality 3rd in Circuit Lab 3rd in Dynamic Planet 3rd in Experimental Design 3rd in Forestry 5th in Fermi Questions 5th in Robot Arm 5th in Write It, Do It Bloomington South -- Place 3rd overall and won the following medals: 1st in Experimental Design 1st in Robot Art 1st in Water Quality 1st in Write It, Do It 2nd in Designer Genes 3rd in Anatomy & Physiology 3rd in Remote Sensing 3rd in Fermi Questions 5th in Elastic Launched Glider Source: Tina Gilliland, State Tournament Director Indiana Science Olympiad ___ (c)2013 the Herald-Times (Bloomington, Ind.) Visit the Herald-Times (Bloomington, Ind.) at www.heraldtimesonline.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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