Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

ScienceKid took the GOLD MEDAL in Storm the Castle on May 20th at the National Science Olympiad Competition held at Indiana University!!!

We are so thrilled. A totally thrilling day!!!

Saturday began for us early in the morning impounding the Trebuchet first thing at 6:30 am. We then moved quickly to the other end of campus to impound the Wheeled Vehicle, and get ScienceKid to his first event, Meteorology that began at 7am.

WHEW!!! That was a very hectic and active hour.

At 8am ScienceKid met his partner M for their wheeled vehicle event; a rubber band powered vehicle that had to travel between 5 and 10 meters, and the exact distance was not announced until competition day. On Saturday the distance was 8.25 meters. Their vehicle traveled exactly in their estimated time, and traveled just shy of the 8.25 meters, but was off-center by 2 cm. That is less then 1 inch from the center-line after traveling 27.06 feet! Later that evening they would learn that they placed 19th. What stiff competition!!!

Just before noon ScienceKid met M, and K for Mission Possible. In this Rube Goldberg event a tennis ball is dropped onto a first class level that triggers a series of simple machines finally resulting in toilet paper dispensing between 25 to 35 cm. The exact running time is given to the competitors just prior to their start and they are given a chance to adjust one operation to meet the time restriction. The boys were ecstatic when their box operated perfectly and it finished within 2 seconds of the required run time. To illustrate how demanding the National level is, their score in this event was up in the 900’s, and only 4 points away from perfect. At the awards ceremony they would receive FIFTH PLACE in Mission Possible! That is a wonderful finish, and ahead of 55 other teams.
Finally we walked into Mellancamp Pavilion for the Storm the Castle event. ScienceKid met KC and they moved the trebuchet from the impound area to the firing range. The judge came over and began looking through their graph package — the competitors were required to provide 5 graphs and an explanation of how to use the graphs to set up their machine. I heard him exclaim; ‘nice write-up, LOOK at these graphs, and all this raw data. This is the BEST package I have seen today!‘ He then moved the trebuchet’s arm through the firing motion to make sure that it did not break the energy rule—at no point could the arm move in the direction of firing since that would indicate that there was potential energy stored in the arm. The judge remarked that the arm was very well balanced and asked ScienceKid where he wanted the target set.

“27 meters please”

ScienceKid aimed the trebuchet, KC and ScienceKid loaded the machine, shouted “1, 2, 3, FIRE” and we watched the projectile fire through the air and land in the box!!! It couldn’t have been a more perfect shot. We knew then that ScienceKid had a good shot at a medal, or a top 6 finish. It would be 6 hours later when we would learn that it was a GOLD MEDAL SHOT!!!!

ScienceKid did not walk away with just these medals, but with a wealth of new skills; he first learned to draw out his building plans with scaled blueprint drawings; he learned his way around his Dad’s woodworking shop and can now operate the sander, drill press, lathe, various saws, router, and other tools; and he learned to do metal-working and even welding. Aside from these physical skills he gained while building the trebuchet, wheeled vehicle and Mission Possible, there were the many mental skills he practiced as he problem-solved design issues, attempted to build some creative idea, or improve the machine’s performance. He also experienced the frustrations and joys of working with his partners, as they worked to translate event rules into an operational machine that would perform the prescribed task. ScienceKid had 3 build events but also one study event this year. For the study event he not only learned about a specific science area (Ecology for State’s and Meteorology for Nationals) but he demonstrated his ability to obtain the necessary resources to educate oneself about a topic.
As we traveled back from Indiana today I heard ScienceKid ask MilitaryKid (10y) whether he learned anything at NSO? ScienceKid then conversed with MilitaryKid that he should have seen how hard work, persistence and dedication to your task pays off, and how there is always room for improvement. That working really hard, even when you’d rather be doing something else, is so worth it. I smiled very big — he has really enjoyed SO and learned so much from this experience.

I would encourage everyone to visit the Science Olympiad website, read about SO, and consider joining or starting a SO team in your area.

As a side-note, 4 other homeschool teams participated this year at the National Competition. It was thrilling to chat with these other hs’ers and hear about how their team arrived at Nationals too.