Palo Alto High School’s Science Olympiad Team is moving on to the Northern California State Science Olympiad after placing first at the regional competition on Feb. 19 at Foothill High School.

Paly will compete at the NorCal Olympiad championship on Saturday, April 9. According to senior president Albert Lin, the winner of the competition will advance to the National Science Olympiad.

“Over the previous three years, we placed second, sixth and third at States, and we hope to do better this year,” Lin said.

The Science Olympiad Team has always done well at the regional level, according to Lin.

“We have consistently placed either first or second at Regionals,” Lin said. “Last year, like this year, we placed first at Regionals.”

Teams of 15 students compete in the Science Olympiad Regionals. This year, Paly had three teams competing: the Green Team, White Team and White Team Two. The Green Team, regarded as the most competitive team, is the one advancing to states, according to Lin.

The competition consisted of 23 different events, ranging from “study” events, which require knowledge in specific fields of science such as ornithology and astronomy, to engineering events, which may include building sumo bots and helicopters. The team assigns groups of two or three to compete at each event and the team who earns the most points based on a judging system wins.