On Friday, Feb. 23, the Science Olympiad team held a meeting to test some of the events they will be participating in for State.

“Our State competition is in Bloomington on March 16,” Jimmy Juscik (9) said.

The Science Olympiad team has gone to invites at schools across the region.

“We’ve done pretty well so far this year; we have a lot of new members. We placed second at Valparaiso and that was our best tournament this far. It’s going to be a little controversial going into State, but we’re hoping to do well. We’ve put together the best team we can, and our goal is to stay in the top ten,” Juscik said.

The team meets every day after school to refine their skills.

“Basically our goals are to work together, think of new ideas, build events, test and complete them,” Juscik said.

Science Olympiad competes in both build-and-test events, and study events.

“I believe we will do exceptionally well in Astronomy. That’s the event that we looked at and determined we will either get first or second place. Astronomy and magnetic levitation are our two best events,” Juscik said.

With events including gliders, magnetic levitation, robotic arm and gravity vehicles, the team has one or two members that run each test and take the tests required from study events.

“State is basically the best of the best competing, and everybody is trying to get to Nationals in April,” Juscik said.