Palo Alto High School’s Science Olympiad Team is preparing to compete in the Olympiad Regional Tournament on March 6 after winning the Science Bowl over the weekend of Feb. 27-28.
While the whole team shared the victory, the group that qualified for the tournament included junior co-presidents Michael Yuan, Albert Lin and Kevin Hu, along with senior Lynnelle Ye and junior Rui Shu.
Hu felt the victory came a pleasant surprise to the team.
“There were 30 seconds left on the clock in the last round against Harker and I realized that they couldn’t win even if they got the next two questions and bonuses,” Hu said. “We look forward to hopefully winning at least some of our round-robin matches at the national tournament, and possibly advancing into the elimination, where we’d like to do our best.”
According to Hu, Paly’s team earned fourth place last year, while the top team from the year before lost in the first round of elimination, making this year’s victory a big accomplishment for the team.
Yuan says he is proud of the team’s record thus far, especially considering the challenges other teams presented.
“We had a good record, 8-0, this year,” Yuan said. “We had some tough matches, especially near the end against the two Homestead teams and the Harker team.”
According to Hu, the local Science Bowl is similar to the regional competition, in the way that it is broken into four round robins with six teams competing in each one.
Paly then advanced to the double-elimination round after winning the round robins, with the second place teams from each bracket going into the lower bracket of elimination. During each round, competitors were quizzed on their knowledge of biology, chemistry, physics, math, astronomy, earth science, and general science.
The tournament began with a toss-up, which is worth four points. During the toss-up, any team member can buzz and answer; the first team to get it right was then asked a bonus question, which is worth 10 points and can be answered together as a team.
According to Yuan, Paly had an advantage over Harker School’s team because it was in the winner’s bracket. The victory over Homestead High School also helped to boost the team’s confidence.
“Not only could we have lost our first match versus them [the Harker School], but we had an hour-long break instead of an hour of straight competition,” Yuan said. “Beating both Homestead teams in a row, both A and B team, was pretty moralizing because they had dominated Science Bowl with a three-year winning streak.
The five-person Science Bowl team, comprised of Yuan, Hu, Ye, Shu and Lin, will attend the National Competition in Washington D.C., to compete from April 29 to May 4.
The next Science Olympiad event to watch out for is the NorCal tournament, in which the team will compete if it qualifies after the Regional Competition.