Science trumped snow in Goshen Saturday morning as 18 local Science Olympiad teams converged on a snow-dusted Goshen College Campus to participate in the 2009 Science Olympiad Regional Tournament.
Modeled after the Olympic games, each participating school fielded a team of up to 15 students to compete in more than 30 science-based competitions, ranging anywhere from astronomy and meteorology to physics and robotics.
Divided into two levels of competition — middle school and high school — each team did its best Saturday to secure one of only three slots available per level that would allow them to move on to the upcoming state competition at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, this March.
Beginning with a 7:30 a.m. registration, the tournament kicked off at 8:15 a.m. with a welcome ceremony in the Church-Chapel and concluded at 3:15 p.m. with a special awards ceremony.
Numerous volunteers, including Goshen College students and staff and community members involved in science-based occupations, were on hand throughout the day to judge and oversee the various competitions.
Glenn Gilbert, utilities director for the college, volunteered his time Saturday to oversee the Robo-Cross competition — one of the more popular events of the day.
According to Gilbert, this year’s Robo-Cross competition involved six teams of two students each pitting their small, self-made robots against those of other teams in a timed obstacle course.
“There’s a lot of variables in how these robots can get the little objects into the various places, and it’s interesting to see how the different teams have chosen to go at it,” Gilbert said of the competitors. “Some actually move the goals closer to the targets, and some move the targets closer to the goals. They have different priorities. It’s very interesting to watch how they do it, and obviously several of the teams have been practicing quite a bit.”
As for the quality of the robots this year, Gilbert had just one word to describe them.
“Ingenious,” he said.
Northridge Middle School student Trey Magnuson and his partner, Corey Bent, took second place overall in the Robo-Cross competition.
“We’ve been working on the robot since maybe November or December,” said Magnuson, who is a third-year participant in the Olympiad competition. Bent is a first-year participant.
As for the event itself, Magnuson said the competition can be pretty brutal.
“We have to pick up certain things and put them into zones or goal boxes,” Magnuson said. “You mainly try to get them in the goal boxes, but if you don’t have time, you try to get them into the zones, and you only have three minutes to do it.”
By the end of the event, however, Magnuson said the run had gone better than he’d hoped.
“It went pretty good,” Magnuson said. “It actually turned out better than I expected.”
Bent agreed.
“It went better than our last competition, when it got stuck on a golf ball,” Bent said with a laugh. “It was a lot of fun.”
At the end of the day, overall winners in the high school division earning a trip to the state competition were: Riley High School, first place; Northridge High School, second place; and La Lumiere High School, third place.
Middle school winners Saturday included: Stanley Clark Middle School, first place; Northridge Middle School, second place; and Manchester Jr. High, third place.
Other middle schools participating in the Science Olympiad Saturday included: Bethany Christian Middle School; Indian Springs Middle School; LaSalle Intermediate Academy; Pierre Moran Middle School; St. Joseph Grade School; and St. Pius X Catholic School.
Additional high schools participating in the event were: Bethany Christian High School; LaPorte High School; Mishawaka High School; Plymouth High School; and Warsaw.
Community High School.
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Students take on science challenge
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