Castaic High School’s Science Olympiad Team competed at the Southern California Science Olympiad Los Angeles Regional Tournament to score ninth place in its division on Saturday.
Castaic, the newest high school in the William S. Hart Union High School District, not only placed ahead of other schools in the district, but also placed ahead of 20 out of 29 total competing schools. The competition entailed 23 STEM events over the course of the day, often with two participants per event.
The following students won medals in five of the events: Quinn Broadwater and Giovanni Foster won second in the robot tour; Jeremy Woolley and Ethan Wilson won third in the robot tour; Dunstan Leogo and Jeanelle Estrella won third in forensics; Joshua Song and Colton Kim won fourth in anatomy/physiology; and Colton Kim, Amanda Lee and Chloe Na won fifth in codebusters.
Science teachers Kate Song and Tamara Irmischer are the coaches of Castaic’s Science Olympiad. According to Song, not only was there a significant jump in scoring, compared to scoring in the late 20s last year, but also a larger interest in attendance.
“We had two teams, each team had 15 students, two alternates, so a total of 34 students participated. We actually took two teams with us because we didn’t want to cut anybody,” Song said. “We had to divide the events up by 15 students, so each student participated in at least two events. I had some students participate in three or four depending on how much they could handle.”
Many of the events included building, while others were knowledge-based and incorporated studying a certain concept to then take a test.
“Some kids had to build a robot, and then they had to program the robot to go through this maze. Some kids had to build a tower that could withstand a maximum load,” Song said. “One group had to build a scrambler vehicle that would deliver an egg without cracking it. Another group had to fly an object into space through an air trajectory machine. It was a lot of fun, a lot of building events.”
Competing in nearly every event minus one, Song discussed the stark difference between this year’s and the prior year’s competing strategy:
“Last year, we weren’t really familiar with the events at all, we had a lot of events that we didn’t participate in, but this year we decided that if we want to be competitive, we have to fill all our events,” Song said. “We also have a really strong senior graduating class this year, and they are the leaders and the models for the team. I’d say that was a big factor. They’re excited about science, and that gets everyone else excited. I think the students really cared and are genuinely interested in science, as opposed to wanting to do it as an extracurricular.”
Among the students who are leading the group is senior Colton Kim, 18, founder and president of the Science Olympiad Club. Kim founded the club two years ago, when he was a sophomore.
“The Science Olympiad is one of the staples when it comes to STEM clubs in high school. When I got here, and we didn’t have a team, so I was like, ‘I need to start one myself,’” Kim said. “I basically began on the journey, which was kind of a lot of work, because it’s difficult having no upperclassmen to show you how to lead a team.”
Despite the initial difficulties, Kim, other members and the advisors faced adversity and not only built the club from scratch, but also succeeded in a short amount of time.
With the first year’s competition consisting of only five members in an online format, and the second year consisting of getting accustomed to the in-person competition, Saturday’s competition proved that practice is essential in triumph.
“This year, we really pulled it all together. I think that just shows how far we’ve come from a group of five people to a team of 30 that’s doing super well,” Kim said.
