The RCMS Science Olympiad ranked second place overall in the Lake Braddock invitationals tournament on Dec. 9.

There were three separate RCMS teams — Arsenic, Manganese, and Cobalt — that scored third, 10th, and 13th respectively out of the 34 total teams that participated. There were also ribbons awarded for 12 students that scored above sixth place in their topics.

“It was a wonderful surprise,” Coach Sangeetha Nithilaselvan said. “I think we have lots of potential.”

Science Olympiad is an academic competition between different schools where students of each school would complete tests or experiments about a variety of science topics with their partner. If they score well, they would advance from the invitationals to the regionals, state, and finally the nationals tournaments.

“Our goal is to help students grow their interest in science through both competition and teamwork,” Coach Sangeetha Nithilaselvan said. 

Sophia Wang, an eighth-grader in Dream Team, explained her experience in the Lake Braddock  invitationals.

“I arrived in the mornings and went to the cafeteria of Lake Braddock Secondary School where I found our school’s sections of the room and reviewed my notes for a while,” she said, “and then, I went to my first test, which was ecology, with my partner.”

According to Sophia, two of her topics, ecology and forestry, were done with a written test where she and her partners had to answer as many questions correctly as possible. Her third topic, tower, was different. It was a build event and required experimenting with a hand-made structure to measure the tower’s structural efficiency. Each of her topics had around an hour-long break between them so she could prepare for her next topic and find the right testing room.

Sophia also described her time during the tests.

“I was really nervous but also determined when I did the tests and hoped for the best,” she said, “especially because our testing room was really quiet. I felt lucky that one of my events allowed a calculator and also a cheat sheet where we could write our notes on a piece of paper front and back.”

She also said that there were many obstacles such as the time limit.

“We had to react fast and work really quickly,” she said. “For ecology, I had only 50 minutes to answer more than 100 questions, and we still had to make time for double checking.”

Sahana Venkat, an eighth-grader on Dream Team, said that her most memorable moment in the Lake Braddock invitational was when she was doing her optics test.

She said that the goal was to bounce a red laser from mirrors and shoot it on a target in only four minutes. The mirrors were covered by sticky notes, so she could not see where the laser was and had to measure the angles herself. 

“This was hard, since just a little mistake could cause the whole thing to fail,” she said. “When I saw that it landed very close to the target, I was really excited and I felt like I could never forget the moment.”

The students also spent time practicing in their meets every Tuesday during after-school activities.

“We worked with our partners on different topics for both A-block and B-block,” Sahana Venkat said. “My topics were fossils, optics, and codebusters. We switched topics around every 45 minutes.” 

She said that the topics were decided by everyone’s interests and strengths.

“I was interested in fossils and chose it in our interest form, so that’s why I got assigned to this topic,” she said.

Sahana also talked about how she balanced Science Olympiad with school work.

“I usually split my time and put in around one hour for each,” she said. “If I finish my school work early, I would put in some extra time for Science Olympiad.”

She said that her favorite part of Science Olympiad was the environment.

“I really love how we work together as a community to become better,” she said.

Sahana said that she used many different strategies when learning about her topics.

“I feel like taking notes on our computers was really useful because it let us memorize more easily and naturally,” she said. 

Ms. Eucee Chan, another coach of Science Olympiad, described some other strategies the students used when studying. 

“We prepared a starter packet for each topic, so the students could know the basic information and have an idea of where to start,” she said. “Then, they would be able to research on their own.”

Ms. Chan said that she has high hopes for the future. 

“I look forward to our next invitational, the StemBoost invitational,” she said. “I am hoping for the best in the future.”