Science Olympiad is an organization that is nationally recognized and is one of the many clubs Aliso has to offer. The club advisor is Ms. Zhou, and the president is Kseniia Antipina (12), who became the president at the end of her sophomore year and has continued to hold this position throughout her junior year and is now going into her senior year.
While the president is Antipina, the other officers consist of Arav Mody (12) as the executive coordinator, Nivedha Jeevenandam (12) as the secretary and social media manager, Alison Chen (11) as the lead of engineering, and Wyatt Warbiany (12) as the lead of knowledge and lab.
The meetings are every other Wednesday during lunch and after school every Wednesday and Thursday, in the science building, Room 203.
The club does different projects and experiments in preparation for their competitions against different high schools at the University of California, Irvine. They currently have a competition coming up in February.
The competition is broken up into three categories: Knowledge, Lab, and Building.
The Knowledge event involves the members creating a study guide through researching the topic, and at the event, they take a test on that specific topic.
The Lab event is similar to the knowledge event, but they also perform a lab, ranging from chemistry to forensics.
The Building event is where they actively build things with tools such as drills and wood.
Antipina said, “My favorites are always the building events, because we make machines. We have cars, we have lightweight airplanes, we have helicopters.”
Ms. Zhou said, “It makes you think about science in a way you don’t think about in class.”
The team that competes in the competitions has around 15 people, and everyone else in the club helps prepare these 15 people to participate in the event. There are over 40 events.
One of the club’s major accomplishments from last year was an event called air trajectory, where the club placed fifth out of 48 teams.
Ms. Zhou said, “They had to design a contraption where they were launching a ping pong ball at a target, and it could only be powered by air.”
This year, the new projects they will be doing consist of Booma Lover, which is where a triangle is attached to a wall, and they are trying to make it hold as much weight as possible. They are also going to be building a car, doing an air trajectory, and building a robot.
The club has had a rise in people showing interest in the Science Olympiad this year, and encourages them to join.
Ms. Zhou said, “Please come, please have fun.”
The members are looking forward to a new year filled with fun activities, collaboration, and teamwork.
