State Science Olympiad Competition

Yesterday was the state Science Olympiad competition. It was really fun and I had a good time. Since I was on the C team I did not have to worry about winning. I could just lay back and have fun. The B team won for the 13th year in a row like it always does. At the competition by our home room people were giving out free stuff. I picked up a poster that had all the mission patches on it. But the main purpose they were there was to talk to us about going to their university.

I competed in three events chemistry lab, food science, and boomilever. Chemistry was a little hard to understand and took me awhile to learn a concept. I thought that chemistry lab was kind of easy and that me and Luke, my partner for the event, did pretty well. Then food science was okay. Me and Luke, who was my partner for this event too, had to determine the amount of energy in a cashew. To do this you had to light the cashew on fire with a Bunsen burner and then set it on a plate which had a can of water over it with a thermometer that told us how hot the water was.

The last event I was on was Boomilever. For those who do not know it is kind of like crane but just the top part. To me this was the event I liked the most. We started to practice for this event by just getting a good design and improving it. To tell how good it was you had to test it. To test it you mount it onto the testing structure and then you have a block on the end of the boomilever with a chain on it. On the chain there is a bucket. You then fill the bucked with sand to see how many kilograms it could hold before it breaks. I felt very confident about this event.

After the competition was over and we ate dinner we went to the award ceremony. This is where they announced who won which events and the over all winner. I was so excited because I knew that I could get the silver medal for boomilever. As they were announcing it you never know if you are ahead or if you did not place at all. But sure enough I won the silver medal. Now I have one of each. I have one gold, one silver, and one gold. I also won a 1,500 dollar scholarship to the University of Utah.

After the award ceremony we went back to the school to have our traditional ice cream party. My aunt works at Smith’s dairy factory near Wal-mart. She can always get us ice cream for free or coupons for ice cream. We all got our ice cream and then we talked with each other. After that we went home. I enjoyed going to bed because this competition wears you out.