Information courtesy of ARHS
Last Saturday, March 23, 44 teams from across the state, including one from Algonquin Regional High School, competed in 24 events at the 2013 Science Olympiad at Framingham University.
The Science Olympiad is one of the premiere science competitions in the nation, providing rigorous, standards-based challenges to over 6,800 high school teams in 50 states. Science Olympiad's ever-changing event line-up energizes students’ interest in all STEM disciplines. The competition takes place first on the state level and later at the national level.
Nate Largesse and Ken Wadman started the Science Olympiad team at Algonquin Regional High School in 2011 and have competed twice. This year the ARHS team placed 9th overall out of 44, an improvement over last year’s
15th place. Also, ARHS took first place in one of the most difficult “build-ahead” events, Robot Arm.
The ARHS Science Olympiad team is sponsored by MathWorks whose generosity has helped the team buy the tools and materials necessary for the engineering events.
Two juniors on the team, Alex Moy and Olivia Murphy, when asked why they like Science Olympiad replied, “It’s nerdy and fun and you get to be inventive and come up with your own ways of solving problems. It challenges
your thinking. Sometimes you apply what you learned in school but sometimes you have to learn new things. The problems are real-life applications of science.”
“The kids learn about problem solving and project management and making friends besides all the science,“ said coach Nate Largesse.
Algonquin’s principal Tom Mead, who attended the event, added, “The opportunity for our students to participate in a competitive and fun event such as the Science Olympiad is unique and special. To test themselves against other high school scholars—and to test their ideas and notions of pursuing science and engineering is vital. Science Olympiad is a great complement to our science and math programs, and provides motivation and excitement among our students. They have fun showing how collaboratively smart they are!“