Instead of sleeping in, Saturday, Feb. 18, Rock Bridge’s two Science Olympiad teams – the Green Team and the Gold Team – headed to Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla for Missouri’s Region 5 competition.
Team members said the trip was worth it as the Gold team nabbed fourth and will be continuing onto the state level in early April.
Starting with the first-round of competitions at 9 a.m. and continuing until the last at 2 p.m., team members competed in a wide variety of topics ranging from “Rocks and Minerals” to “Anatomy and Physiology” to “Forensics.” Total, the two teams placed in 17 of the 24 events.
For the state competition, Rock Bridge will be combining the Green and Gold team; the list of the state team members has not been announced, however.
All students who participated in the competition Saturday spent time and effort preparing. For instance, for one of the events, Sounds of Music, a team of two was asked to build an instrument from scratch.
Although sophomores Esther Liu and Sam Ding said they “already knew quite a bit about music and sound,” creating and building an instrument still took them time. Both spent about 28 hours constructing a string-like instrument. For their efforts, the duo placed fourth in the event.
For Liu, however, her individual placement was nothing compared to the team – and even community – accomplishment. Her favorite part of the day was the awards ceremony where Columbia dominated the lauds.
Both high schools placed in the top four for the high school division, with Hickman winning first. Equally impressive was the junior high and middle school division, where Columbia swept the awards: West Junior High placed first, Smithton Middle School placed second, Columbia Independence third and Jefferson Junior High, fourth.