Uncle Science Olympiad Needs You

Devlin-du-GEnie writes "I'll be judging an event for Florida's state Science Olympiad this coming weekend. It's kind of like a track meet of science and engineering. The participants are middle- and high-school students from all over Florida. (There are also two elementary school divisions.) I judged an event last year. It was incredibly rewarding to see kids fiercely competitive and engaged with problem solving. It's chock-full of geekly joy." Read on for some more details, including how you can get involved in the program.

The menu of events includes:

• Bottle Rocket
• Cell Biology
• Chemistry Lab
• Designer Genes
• Disease Detectives
• Dynamic Planet
• Experimental Design
• Robot Ramble
• Storm the Castle (catapaults!)
• Naked Egg Drop

Regional and state olympiads take place around the country. They always need volunteers to judge and help out. Check out the national Olympiad site and see what you can do to help. Their 20th anniversary national event is this May about 90 miles west of Harrisburg, PA."

Comments

Re:Question...

[Gestahl]

The naked egg drop is a twist on the old "drop the egg from a window inside a padded thing and see if it lasts" schtik. In this, the thing you build sits on the floor, and you drop the egg "naked" and see how high you can drop it from and it still not crack when it lands in your device. Our team won several years ago simply using *extremely* fine sand in a box ;-).

Re:An Innocent Question

[sljgh]

A lot of the events are not done ahead of time. There are programming events, math events and biology events as well as some that require the constrction of contraptions (egg drop etc.) that are started and completed at the competition by the students. Parents and coaches can do as much as they can to prep the kids, but only the judges know the questions, problems, or what supplies are available ahead of time.