Science Olympiad Photos: 8th Grade

(retrospection)

Given how much I hated science, I'm still not sure how exactly I ended up on the science Olympiad team. Like a lot of things in my life it is something I sort of accidentally wandered into, and then decided it was too much trouble to try and get out of.

There was a brief time when I actually liked science: starting back around second grade when I thought science was just learning about the behavior of cute animals and watching movies like "The Living Desert". Added to my childhood obsession with wolves, and there was a time when I thought I'd actually grow up to be a zoologist.

But by 7th and 8th grade I had a few middle school level science classes under my belt and I was convinced science was not my friend.

Somehow I ended up on the team anyway. My 7th grade year was the first time our science teacher decided to try and field a team, and he was desperate to recruit. He promised all sorts of extra credit to anyone who would join the team. We got extra credit just for attending informational meetings about the team, so I dropped by a couple of them.

I specifically remember him saying in his recruitment speech: "the best part about science olympiad is that on the day itself the team gets to spend a whole Saturday doing fun science related activities."

I remember that because inside my head I was thinking, "That's the worst part of the whole thing. How out of touch is this guy? To sacrifice a whole Saturday to school science projects?"

But after I attended the first couple meetings, the science teacher, now aggressively trying to recruit enough people to field a team, kept asking me to join, and at a certain point I decided it was just easier to just go ahead and join the damn team rather than breaking it to him that I wasn't interested.

That, plus a Swagman family rule of my parents: once you make a commitment to a group, you stick to it. In practice this usually meant that showing up for one or two meetings meant you were condemned to not only join but stick through for all the following years.

And so the following year found me joining as well. The first year I really couldn't do anything right on my own, so I just helped other students out with their events. (Actually I tried out for the Mouse Trap Powered Car event, but because I didn't read the directions carefully my vehicle ended up disqualifying. The next year, to my great embarrassment, the science teacher used me as an example of why everyone should always read the directions carefully before beginning an event).

The following year I tried out for the paper airplane event. We were given three sheets of paper and some tape and scissors, and told to make an airplane that could stay in the air for the longest amount of time. Not having any creative ideas, I simply taped all three pieces of paper together and let it float down to the ground. Pathetic as that was, it ended up being the best paper airplane in my school, so I was selected to do that event at Science Olympiad that year.

I had a few months to practice and fine tune my device, but I figured why mess with the classics. So for the actual event I simply taped my papers together, held it up as high as I could, and let it float down. I'm not sure how I placed exactly, but I didn't walk home with any prizes.



The other pictures are from a projectile device event. This was a friend of mine who had built the device, and my only job was to help load it.















Link of the Day
The Real Iraq Progress Report