Paly’s Friends of Millard Fillmore Club will compete against other high school teams in an annual research competition, which begins on Friday, Feb. 6, and continues until Monday, Feb. 9.

With a team of about 25 other members, senior co-captains Anna Bastidas, Michael Bloch, and Vienna Tran hope to continue the team’s success from last year’s competition, in which Paly placed first among six local high schools.

“We’re the defending champions and I don’t know if we’ve ever won two years in a row,” Tran said. “But we’re trying to remain optimistic and I think our chances are strong.”

On Friday, the participating teams will travel to Carlmont High School to receive a list of trivia questions and spend the rest of the weekend attempting to find the answers, according to Bastidas. The teams are required to document their answers and write a bibliography for the sources they use; these need to be turned in by Sunday night.

In addition to answering the trivia questions, the teams need to locate a set of bring-in items, according to Bastidas.

“Last year, it was one of those clip-on pins that they give you when you go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,” Bastidas said.

According to Bastidas, the teams are required to find two sources to document each answer. The teams are not allowed to use online sources and are therefore limited to written sources including books, newspaper articles, or journals.

On Monday, the teams will return to Carlmont, where they will defend their answers and sources, while attempting to find faults in other teams’ bibliographies, according to Bastidas. The winners will be announced on Monday night.

The judges typically use a point system based on the accuracy of the answers to determine the winners, according to Tran.

“The judges are really picky about spelling,” Tran said. “It’s pretty much all-or-nothing; if you misspell anything, the answer’s completely wrong.”

Carlmont High School established the competition 40 years ago “to teach students research skills in a fun and competitive way,” according to the school’s Web site.

Sophomore Quinn Walker, a returning member on Paly’s team, echoes this sentiment.

“The thing I love about Millard Fillmore is that you find out things about people that you didn’t know, like where exactly Beethoven’s first symphony was written,” Walker said.

After learning from its experiences at past competitions, the team will focus on maintaining an accurate bibliography as one of its main priorities this weekend, according to Tran.

“Last year we waited until too late to write the bibliography, and we had to fix errors at the last minute,” Tran said. “Otherwise, we did a really good job keeping organized and our leadership was really great.”

In preparation for this year’s competition, the team has spent the past semester recruiting students to the team and encouraging more underclassmen to get involved in the event, Bastidas said.

“I think our biggest weakness is our lack of numbers [team members],” Bastidas said. “We have a very small team, and when you get down to it, it really comes down to manpower.”

Despite the team’s challenges, Bastidas is optimistic about its chances in the competition this year and looks forward to the event.

“The weekend of the contest is probably one of the most intense, frustrating, and fun weekends ever,” Bastidas said. “We just have to have really strong organization and really good communication between everyone, and I think we’ll do really well.”

Editor’s Note: Senior co-captains Anna Bastidas, Michael Bloch, and Vienna Tran are members on the Voice staff.