Area school students compete in 2018 Science Olympiad State Tournament hosted by USD

Middle school and high school students  put their science projects on display, competing in the 34th annual Science Olympiad State Tournament on Saturday hosted at USD.

This year’s state tournament featured two divisions with six area schools competing in each. Yankton middle school took first place in Division B, while Yankton High School won first place in Division C, making it the second year in a row Yankton has swept the Science Olympiad State Tournament.

The tournament consists of individual and team events that feature the following science categories: biology, earth science, chemistry, physics, computers and technology.

Ian Shoemaker, an assistant physics professor at USD, supervised the roller coaster event at the tournament. He said the event gets students acquainted with general principles of physics and creating successful design elements.

“Making a flexible design is an interesting aspect of the ‘roller coaster’ event as well because they don’t know what the exact target time is until they’re about to go,” Shoemaker said.

For the roller coaster event, each team designs and constructs a roller coaster track that must stay within 60.0 cm length x 60.0 cm width x 80.0 cm height, according to the rule manual.

Shoemaker said prior to the competition, teams test a roller coaster track to guide a spherical vehicle that uses gravitational potential energy as its sole means of propulsion to travel as close as possible to a target time.

David Olson, a first-year graduate student studying physics, supervised the event with Shoemaker.

“It makes them think about the methodology of how to build, design and arrange in order meet the target time,” Olson said. “Win or lose, learning how to problem solve is a great aspect students gain through the Science Olympiad.”

Keaton List and Trace Jensen were two eighth graders from Yankton competing in the event. The target time for the roller coaster was 30 seconds, which the two narrowly achieved at 29.7 seconds in front of a crowd of spectators at Churchill-Haines Laboratory.

“We put so much practice into our roller coaster track, and we were really happy with our performance today,” List said.

Jensen said the trial and error process helped them construct the best track.

“I do like the trial and error part as well because it keeps you on your toes, but I really like the building process, it’s a lot of fun,” List said.

List and Jensen have been preparing for the event and competed in a local tournament recently, which both said helped them get great ideas from other students.

“I’ve always loved science, but I started getting serious about it in fifth grade,” Jensen said. “I saw Science Olympiad as an opportunity to continue my love for science.”

List and Jensen, along with both Yankton teams, earned themselves a spot competing in the Science Olympiad National Tournament in May, as tops teams in each state tournament get the opportunity to do for winning.

Video by Ali Boysen for Coyote News.