<p>Anyone have any info on science olympiad? Costs of membership, competition, etc? Are there categories for competition..like medicine, biology, chemistry, experimental stuff...like hands on competitions? How many people are on a science bowl team? Any information would be helpful! Thanks.^_^</p>
<p>I LIVE for Science Olympiad (I'm the one that said it first, too :) ) Check out the official site: <a href="http://www.soinc.org%5B/url%5D">http://www.soinc.org</a>. It's a country-wide competition with regional, state, and national levels. My school went to State last year, a big deal because this is California!</p>
<p>The events are not straightforward at all. They're really cool: I concentrated in "Cell Biology" and "Designer Genes." The former was more lab work, the latter a test on knowledge of genetics and modern technology. They have a robotics section, Experimental Design, Astronomy, Forestry, Fossils, Forensics, and a weird thing where you approximate sizes in scientific notation (like: how many drops of water are in Lake Michigan?). There are building events like Bottle Rockets, Tribuche (medieval catapult) and Mission Possible. The last is ultra-cool: you build a machine that does a certain function using all the forms of energy. My partner made the most amazing one last year...can you tell I love it? There are a lot more events, but I can't list them off the top of my head, and they change every year.</p>
<p>You'll need a coach, a teacher in your school who supervises. The costs aren't that high, as I remember, but you'll need $ for materials, study sources, and busing to get to the actual competition. The competition takes place in the beginning of the year, January of 2006 usually.</p>
<p>There are 15 people on the team plus one alternate. My school is lucky if there are enough people fighting for a position that we have to do eliminations, but if you're considering a Science Honor Society you've probably got a big enough pool to make it interesting.</p>
<p>I do hope you make one. You'll have a blast!</p>
<p>I do SO and love it. Tkm's post was so thorough that I can't really think of anything to add other than that advancing to states and nationals is very hard. It's going to take a few years for your team to start having some good results. But, good luck and make sure you get a really dedicated coach (it should be a science teacher too).</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure I can find some quality candidates.</p>
<p>is your school supposed to have it or something? i've never heard of this science olympiad thing at mine..</p>
<p>Science olympiad isnt something that every school has... But yeah, it is lots of fun...</p>
<p>At my school, we find it to be rather expensive. I think the registration fee is different in different states, and it costs $150 or something around there to register, plus other costs like transportation, materials for construction, etc.</p>
<p>Since when does Cell Bio involve labwork, tkm? Ours didnt, except for describing an experiment and looking in a microscope... They took out cell bio this year, and put in ecology (ugh...) and entomology (even worse...)....</p>
<p>What state are you in, BewareOfNerd? I'm in California. But what I meant by "labwork" was what you described. I'm still irked because at state level, we were supposed to identify which stage of mitosis the cells in the sample indicated were in, but they were in interphase! I have no idea what the proctor was thinking....but that's not the point. I guess the events that really use labwork are Experimental Design or Forensics (they didn't take those out this year, did they? I haven't checked.)</p>
<p>Entymology might be kind of cool. We can't keep answering questions on enzyme activity for forever.</p>
<p>I am in cali too. I think those are still in there, but they took out quite a few big events. They took out Chem ID (formally qualitative analysis) and mission possible this year. They did odd things with the events. </p>
<p>On a good note, health science is the nervous system (only one this year...thank goodness...), and of course we can answer questions on enzyme activity forever... I don't know how many questions we can have on insects though. They already have one event that needs a field guide, why do they need another...</p>
<p>Do either of you go to Troy? I hope not, because I hate Troy. In my state invitationals cost 80... but we have 2 teams so we need to register twice.The school pays for some and our sponsers pay for the rest. We go to about 5 invitationals (and host one) and then regionals, states, and nationals, so yeah it's pretty expensive. I know for a fact it was somewhere in 5,000-10,000$. They also took out bottle rockets, forestry, and experimental design.</p>
<p>Argh, Troy! Na, I'm from Chaparral. We're no threat. BewareOfNerd is from West High.</p>
<p>I heard the Troy guys have an entire class for Science Olympiad, with hired coaches and everything. Is it true? We were lucky to get our hands on a Fossil field guide :rolleyes: Wait, no mission possible? My partner's going to die of disappointment. I have to check it out myself now.</p>
<p>I've done SO in TX for the past 6 years. I've already graduated, so I won't be competing next year (which I guess is a good thing since half my events - my best ones - have dissapeared). There was a lot of good discussion going on in the 2006 Rules Forum on the official SO site before they announced the list, so I was surprised to see a lot of the events go.</p>
<p>P.S. - Those of you doing SO should check out the <a href="unofficial">url=http://scioly.org/obb/index.php</a> SO message board</p>
<p>Yeah I use the SO boards. Yes, Troy does have it's own class and their coaches get paid a lot. I know that is true for a fact, but I've also heard something like their main coach gets paid 10,000$ for it and they have a coach for each event. The team that was trying to beat us this year at states had an coach for every event and event meetings every night for months. Then main meetings every week. So each person had like 3-5 meetings per week. Our coach wants to get us credit for SO, which we all think is a stupid idea because it won't even count towards our GPA and we all already have way beyond the credits we need for graduating.</p>
<p>um..I am going to study in Troy after this summer and I really want to join their team.
Do you guys have any idea of when do they choose their members?
I am a raising junior >< so I guesse my chance of getting in is kind of low...</p>
<p>Are you serious, forestry isn't an even next year??? I hated that event sooo much last year, but I was kinda looking forward to doing it this year for some reason. >.< Now I'm depressed :'(</p>
<p>Ya, I think it is kinda expensive, not sure how much. I know that for nationals we had to raise 5,000 dollars through fundraisers, mostly having local cafes and restaurants donate a certain percentage of their money made on a certain night. OY, Troy does reaaallly suck. It's not fair!! My team only got one medal, and that was for a trial event. ^_^</p>
<p>I love how these science competitions have "a bad guy"... Haha, boo Troy! Just kidding, but yeah, stop winning... And Thomas Jefferson HS, stop winning science bowl...</p>
<p>Ok, this years changes to the events are messed up, except for the removal of mission possible...</p>