Thomas County Central High School Science Olympiad students recently competed in the Middle Georgia State University Region Science Olympiad tournament. Several pupils earned ribbons and two groups placed in their events (see box).

“We faced very tough competition with a team of mostly new members this year,” sponsor Laura Kornegay said. “Four of the teams we were up against were from schools that have been national qualifiers.”

Jackson NeSmith, Ben Wilhelm and Ian Small earned third place in the Mousetrap Vehicle category.

“The mousetrap vehicle is an event where we had to build a vehicle powered by mousetraps,” NeSmith explains. “The competition required the vehicle to travel at least 3 meters forward (for maximum points) and back somewhere between 2 and 4 meters behind where you initially started. Ben Wilhelm and I worked on this during several Sunday Science Olympiad practices. Once we got it finished, we kept a log book of how it ran and what we needed to do differently. I was very excited about how we placed because of the hard competition that we were going against.”

Kendajah Cummings entered the Dynamic Planets category (she studied the effects of plate tectonics within the Earth and how this affects landscaping) and also was part of a two-member team who competed in the Hovercraft category.

“We created a hovercraft that had to move a certain distance in 30 seconds,” she said. “After we did that, my partner and I took a test about energy and the different types of formulas. In hovercraft, our placement was not too bad. I'm actually content with our placing in that.”

NeSmith, Cummings’ teammate, calls the hovercraft a very challenging event.

“Our actual hovercraft was not great, but luckily there was a test portion in that event,” he said. “My partner and I worked very well together and felt confident about it when it was over. I am extremely pleased to earn a ribbon in this event.”

Cummings feels the TCCHS team did a decent job in the overall competition.

“I think we did a decent job being that each of us did numerous events,” she said. “We had to recite and learn a lot of info in different areas of science.”

NeSmith says anyone who is interested in the STEM pathway in college or who likes science should give Science Olympiad a try.

“The Science Olympiad competition is an all day, nonstop competition that is physically and mentally tiring,” he said. “For about five hours, I was walking around a college campus going from event to event. It was honestly a competition like no other. However, I would definitely recommend it to others. I wish I would have done it in previous years.”

Cummings says Science Olympiad involves all types of sciences – from anatomy to herpetology – and is for people interested in this field.

“I encourage people to attend because you learn so much and actually teach yourself a lot of new information,” she said. “It never hurts to have more knowledge.”

TCCHS Region Science Olympiad Results

Placers

1st place ~ Write It/Do It ~ Hailey Ferrel & C’lee Kornegay

3rd place ~ Mousetrap Vehicle ~ Jackson NeSmith, Ben Wilhelm & Ian Small

Ribbon Winners

Experimental Design ~ C'lee Kornegay, Zach Goff & Joshua Stephens

Fermi Questions ~ Bret Hendricks & Ian Small

Helicopters ~ Joshua Stephens & Zach Goff

Herpetology ~ Ann Guo & Alyssa Yates

Hovercraft ~ Jackson NeSmith & Kendajah Cummings

Mission Possible ~ C'lee Kornegay & Joshua Stephens

Thermodynamics ~ Hailey Ferrel & Zach Goff