Science Olympiad Goes to State

This past weekend, our middle school Science Olympiad team, led by Mrs. Khan, went to the state championship, where they competed against 34 other schools. The team won nine medals overall, placing eleventh in the state.

With the competition being virtual this year, some of the more exciting interactive events were put on hold, while others were converted to a digital format. For example, in the past, TDS has been known for some amazing structures, from pasta towers to balsa wood boomilevers. However, this year students used a program called SkyCiv to build a digital boomilever with specific specs. Another event, Game On, focused on coding a game from the MIT program Scratch. Students were given a video of the game and fifty minutes to recreate the code. While the Crimebusters event was missing the forensics lab, students were presented with a crime scene and had to analyze fingerprints, powders, and shoe prints to support their claim for a culprit.

Some events still took place primarily offline. For instance, in Experimental Design, students were given a list of materials and then asked to design an experiment about paper airplanes. Our team designed 3 different sizes of paper airplanes and tested their flight times down the hallway. They formulated a hypothesis, identified variables, made data tables and graphs, analyzed statistics, and drew conclusions — basically a whole semester of Science Expo in fifty minutes!

Our entire team did an amazing job, and the following students earned individual medals:

• Oliver (8th)
• Wil S (8th)
• Conlan (7th)
• Henry (6th)
• Nureen (6th)
• Joseph (6th)

This year was the TDS team’s best performance at the state championship, which is especially amazing considering the limitations due to COVID-19 protocols. All of these students dedicated their time after school and on weekends to prepare for their events. We can’t wait to see what we’re able to accomplish next year!

Please congratulate all our team members on an outstanding performance!