Chapel Hill High’s Science Olympiad team, headed by co-presidents junior Emmaline Phillips and senior Yichen Sun, placed second in the regional competition in Greensboro on February 25, qualifying the team for the the state tournament April 21-22 at NC State University.
Science Olympiad is a club for those seeking to further their knowledge outside of the classroom. Members of the Science Olympiad compete against other schools in a variety of different competitions—including tests, construction projects and labs—in areas such as chemistry, engineering and anatomy.
“Basically everyone has different events, and some of them are written tests with ranging topics,” Sun said. “For some of them you go into a chemistry lab and do a chemistry procedure, and others are engineering events where you have to build a device beforehand and test it on site.”
One of the events Sun participates in involves a staple of elementary school classrooms: paper airplane engineering.
“There’s one that I do where you build airplanes, and you try to fly them for the longest and have them go in circles inside a gym,” Sun said. The team tests the airplanes at the Smith Middle School gym.
Last year, the team placed fourth at states, a benchmark that Sun acknowledges will be difficult to replicate or improve upon.
“The competition is really tough,” said Sun. “I’d be super happy if we could place fourth again, but if we could place even higher, that’d be really awesome. It’s going to be really tough to try to do that.”
The team has placed first in states a total of six times, most recently in 2019. While Sun and Phillips have high hopes, the team lost a lot of experienced members from last year’s team.
“We had many of our seniors graduate last year,” Phillips said. “This year is kind of a rebuilding year.”
To work against this obstacle, the team has been preparing for states since February, with some members of the varsity team practicing for three or four different events.
“I am doing three events,” said senior Raymond Yang. “For forestry, I am working on the identification and usages of all trees.” Yang is also involved in an environmental problem-solving event and a chemistry lab assignment and test.
Still, coordinating practices can be difficult, as Science Olympiad team members are often involved in various other extracurriculars and sports. Phillips said club meetings are flexible to accommodate students’ busy schedules.
“We try to focus on just doing the best we can,” Phillips said, “especially since most of us all have incredibly busy schedules where we can’t dedicate a ton of time to Science Olympiad.”
Phillips—who plays tennis and sings a capella, among other extracurricular activities—noted that many of their competitors have practice every day and have better funding to support them.
Both Phillips and Sun attribute the team’s success to one person: Smith Middle School teacher Regina Baratta, with whom Phillips and Sun began their involvement in Science Olympiad.
Sun and Phillips thanked her for her organization and support.
“We are still doing Science Olympiad because of you!” both exclaimed during an interview with The STEM Yard, the official podcast of the North Carolina Science Olympiad.
