Competitive teams from 53 middle schools and 27 high schools from
Kent and Ottawa counties will converge on Grand Valley State
University's Allendale campus for the Region 12 Science Olympiad
Tournament on Saturday, March 19, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Events
begin in the Grand Valley Field House and expand through the day to
other campus halls, including Padnos, Henry, Loutit and Cook-DeWitt.
Events are designed to challenge students' science and technology
knowledge as well as processing and application skills. The public is
invited to attend and watch problem-solving events, such as:
"Naked Egg," where students build an on-site catcher to
protect their raw egg while being dropped from increasingly greater
heights, until it breaks.
"Disease Detectives," in which students understand
connections between things they may encounter in daily life and
various health problems that affect communities, risks for
disease/injury, and opportunities for prevention.
"Pentathlon," where five physical skills are interspersed
with science questions in an obstacle course that will be run in a
relay race style where each student passes the balloon to the next
student.
"Experimental Design," in which are given a set of unknown
objects to design, conduct, analyze and write-up an experiment.
"Wright Stuff," where students will design and build a
propeller propelled aerodynamic device and compete for greatest time
aloft.
"Storm the Castle," where teams will design, construct,
calibrate and operate a device capable of launching a projectile as
far and as accurately as possible using only the energy of a falling
counterweight. Additional free events are planned throughout the
day including a special physics demonstration, presented by the GVSU
Physics Club, in the Fieldhouse from noon to 3 p.m. There will also
be a showing from1-3:15 p.m. of three episodes of Star Trek in the
Big Screen Theater located in 107 Manitou Hall.
The official web site of Science Olympiad is www.soinc.org.
