Science Olympiad Team Brings Home Gold

Are you ready for some science?!

 The Science Olympiad County Competition at Kutztown University occurred on Thursday, 5 January. The Fleetwood squad left school to compete against 13 other schools from across Berks County.

Each team brings 15 competitors to participate in 23 different events. There are two people per event from each school, so all of the students have to compete in multiple events. The specific events can be a written test, lab, or pre-built project.

The scoring for the competition is most comparable to golf scoring. If a team wins an event, they are awarded one point and the team that places last receives the highest amount of points possible. The school with the least amount of points at the end takes the cake.

This year, one of the projects was building a balsa wood helicopter. The goal was to keep your helicopter in the air for the longest amount of time. Mr. McCullough’s physics students had to do a similar project earlier this year.

The task is to build a tower capable of holding a pre-determined weight. The team with the lightest tower that holds the most weight wins. There also was a competition where the team had to build a robotic arm. The robotic arm then had to pick up certain objects and place them in a box.

The team studied and worked the whole year during and after school leading up to the event. The team has taken first place in counties for the last four years. This year, there are a lot of new people and underclassmen who had to replace last year’s senior class.

Despite the lack of experience, Fleetwood took home gold for the fifth year in a row. The team had a third place or better finish in 16 of the 23 events. They had the lowest score, 74, edging Kutztown by 6 points, as they averaged just over 3 points per competition.

 Students who won their events for Fleetwood include Peter Sitarik, Patrick Tobias, Ellie Tracy (2), Brandon Creyer, Greg Ratzell, and Jake Kramer.