News
Bottineau Science Olympiad teams compete at state
Tyler Ohmann
05/07/2013
Bottineau’s Science Olympiad teams recently competed with some success at the state tournament. On April 20 Bottineau’s Division B team, who are junior high and ninth graders coached by Deb Nelson took first place for Class B schools and third place overall against 24 Class A and B schools.
The team scores were calculated based on strong individual finishers.
The top finisher for the team were Evan Koch and Kyle Saville, who took first place in the Helicopter competition.
One very busy student was freshman Andrew Haberman, who was in the top 10 in five different events.
He said that coach Nelson was who got him into Science Olympiad and that he enjoys building events.
“She really got me involved in science activities by being a science teacher,” Haberman said. “I like building, and we have a couple competitions where we build, like our mouse trap vehicle. In that we have to build a mouse trap vehicle that will stop at a certain distance and get there as fast as possible.”
Haberman and teammate Koch took fifth in that mouse trap vehicle category.
Other strong finishes for Bottineau included Haberman and Koch in boomilever; Anjali Kumar and Kaytlyn Aufforth in Heredity; Aufforth and Hannah Reimche in rotor egg drop and Saville and Dalton Barbot in shock value. All those teams placed third.
Overall Bottineau totaled two fourth place, six fifth place, three seventh, three eighth a ninth and a pair of 10th place finishes.
Members of those teams included: Aufforth, Barbot, Katja Bechtold, Juliann Brandjord, Nic Costa, Victoria Gullett, Haberman, Koch, Kumar, Emma Munson, Nolan Pewe, Katelyn Pigeon, Reimche, Saville and Bailey Schmidt. Alternates were Lilye Adkins and Ethan Kippen.
When the team won first place Haberman and his teammates were thrilled.
“I actually wasn’t expecting it and I was really excited,” Haberman said.
Haberman said the most difficult thing for the competition is preparation.
“For studying it is challenging, especially when you have multiple events to study,” Haberman said. “A lot of the building events require testing, and takes a long time too.”
Also in action
Also competing at state after a top finish at regionals was Bottineau’s Division C or high school team.
As a team the high schoolers finished in eighth place in Class B schools and 14th place overall in Class A and B schools at the state meet in Fargo on April 20.
The lone first place finishers were Laura Ellen Brandjord and Jared Munson in water quality.
Brandjord said she always steps up her game at state.
“We always expect states to be harder than our regions, and we try to prepare the most that we can,” Brandjord said. “We go over to the college (DCB) and talk to the professors about our specific events to try and get some help.”
Challenges at the event for Brandjord included new competitions, and who runs it.
“It’s a little different than what you expect going into a new event if you haven’t done it before,” Brandjord said. “It’s usually run a little different depending on if its run by a professor or if its run by students that are taking a course that pertains to it.”
“Sometimes they don’t know the rules, so you have to make sure you know the rules, so you can tell them. Sometimes that effects where you’re going to be place,” Brandjord added.
Being in a new event was something that was a challenge for Halie Haakenson this year.
“I was thrown into two events that I hadn’t studied for until two days before because we needed people to do them,” Haakenson said. “So we just kind of winged them, and me and my partner were like ‘oh, this is easier than we thought.’”
“Its just kind of look at it briefly so that you have some kind of idea what you’re doing,” Haakenson added.
According to Nelson, players are forced to go into different events due to scheduling conflicts.
“The schedules are never the same, so when we find out when the event is going to be it sometimes conflicts with another event they’re supposed to be in,” Nelson said. “So then they get pushed out of their event, so then they have to take on a different one.”
“They may have been prepped for this one, but when they find that out they have to study majorly for the new one,” Nelson added.
Munson said as a bit of an elder statesmen for the team there was a little pressure on him to perform well.
“I think so, because when you’re one of those people who comes in more than others it kind of puts a lot more on you and you know you have standards to look up to,” Munson said.
To improve Munson hopes to learn from this year’s finish.
“You know what you can improve on for next year, and it’s good to stay in the same event I think, at least one, because then you at least know what the test is like,” Munson said. “Halie (Haakenson) has done anatomy since eighth grade, and she’s gotten awards.”
The high school team was coached by Scott Hershey.
Apart from Munson and Brandjord’s first place finish, Bottineau had one fourth place, one fifth, one seventh and three 10th place finishes.
Team members at the competition included: Kennedy Azure, Brandjord, Jason Brandvold, Morgan Costa, Scott Davis, Ty Domben, Haakenson, Joey Hackman, Mariah Hackman, Levi Indvik, Madison Klebe, Kyler Korgaard, Kalin Millang, Munson and Erin Severson.