Submitted by
Renee Rose
The 34th Montana Science Olympiad was held on Nov. 20 at Montana State University in Bozeman. The Science Olympiad is an academic interscholastic competition involving 47 high school and 48 middle school teams in a wide range of events involving all science disciplines.
The goal of Science Olympiad is to improve the quality of science education, increase student interest in science and provide recognition for outstanding achievement in science by students. Libby was represented with seven high school and four middle school team members this year.
Highlights of the competition include six events that placed in the top 20 finishes. For the high school team ,Alyssa James and Suvari Neff placed 20th in the Write It/Do It competition. For Write It/Do It, one partner describes in writing how to build a particular design and then the other partner uses their description to build the design all within a limited amount of time. Alyssa and Suvari also placed 16th in the Mission Possible event which is a Rube Goldberg type of device where one event has to trigger the next event.
Madison Broden, Hailey Chambers, and Sally Weber earned a 13th place in Experimental Design.
For the Middle School Team Johnny Shao and Jenavie Hammond earned 12th place for Write It/Do It. Johnny also received a respectable 11th place finish for the Elastic Lauch Glider.
Jared Iliff was the star finisher with a first place medal in the Roller Coaster event. Jared designed a roller coaster that carried a marble for up to a minute ride, but the roller coaster had to be calibrated and adjustable to meet the time demand set by the coaches at competition.
Other team members include Cruzier Sharp, Maverick Owens and Makenzie Mills. Tytus Meister and Cort Stern were not able to make the state competition. The team coaches are Carlan Campbell and Renée Rose.
The Libby Science Olympiad team would like to thank Gear Up for providing financial support and transportation which made the trip possible and Luke Wardensky, Frank Votapka, John Love and Bruce Fuller who provided advice and expertise.