Every year the San Dimas High School Science Olympiad team competes with schools from all over at Antellope Valley College. Students spent countless hours prepping and studying for all of their events. At the competition students competed in events pertaining to various fields of science.

There were  building events where students used  their engineering and creative skills to design and construct a structure that would perform a specific action. In addition our students also competed in study events where students studied and took a written exam on all different kinds of science fields.

There were only 15 students from the team that were selected to compete to represent our school in the competition based on their specialization in each of the competition events.

Placing between 1st and 6th place for each event meant that your school would receive a medal for that certain event. The team received first place for one event, second place for three events, third place for three events, fourth place for three events and sixth place for four events. The Saints came back with a total of 14 medals.

Mrs. Luevand a teacher at San Dimas and one of the club’s supervisors stated, “I’m incredibly proud of who this team is in terms of who they are as people and how they lift each other up and walk each other through. That’s how Science Olympiad works. You know? 
Nobody’s left out to be an island. Nobody’s pushed aside. You know, and that’s what I really love about this team.”

Tiffany Ng one of the Sophmores on the team competed in three events: Entomology, Bungee Drop, and Fossils. She placed in the top 5 for two out of the three events. She was surprised with her results in Bungee Drop after getting 2nd place and not being completely prepared.

“My favorite moment was probably the award ceremony, just getting to see our team get so many awards and just doing well. Everyone was so excited which made it really fun.” added Sophmore Eyob Solomon.

This year the team did an exceptional job coming back in 4th place out of 30 schools. Only the top 5 teams from the Regional competition are able to move on to state. Our Saints were only one place short of being able to advance last year since they received sixth place. This was the first time in over 20 years that the SciOly team advanced to State.

“There were some really strong contributors to the team who really paved the way. I’ll mention Edward Hana who did four study events and medaled in every single one. That’s work ethic, right? If we could get the whole team to model that, then we are going to be competitive for years to come”, noted Mr. Sandt one of the club supervisors.

Madison Niedwiedz  a Junior on the team expressed that advancing was a team effort and that it was like recieving a reward for all of their hard work. She explained that it was nice to actually be recognized for it.

The Science Olympiad team was able to make a lot of progress since last year and came back this year even stronger to ensure that they had a spot in the state competition. It will be held at Cal Tech University in Pasadena California, on April 12th.

 “Advancing to state means that we’re all gonna have to work a lot harder. I’m hoping we can get some placements at state and do the best that we can over there, to put a name on the team and show people that we mean business.” stated Sophmore Edward Hana

The Saints only have a couple of weeks from now to finalize and prepare everything to ensure success before the big day of their competition.