Silver High Science Olympiad Team is headed to the national competition in Oklahoma this summer. Pictured with their BotBall robot are (back row left to right) Marcela Johnson, Sarah Stanley, Tyrell Marek, Mr. Nathan Nolan; (front row left to right) Caoilfhionn Nolan, Dannika Maldonado, Melody Harwood, and Kief Gonzales. Olympiads not pictured are Reagan Barragan, Justice Guillory, Gabbi Hughes, Mikaela Johnson, Parker McMillan, Sheena Merino, Anayah Peru Nicole Rodriguez, Cole Rogers, Lonnie Sandoval and Doug Stone.Wednesday, May 1, 2019; Silver City, NM: Silver High Science Olympiad team is on to better challenges, or maybe the BEST challenge of these teen scientists’ lives.
Ranking in the top 10 during the state-wide New Mexico Science Olympiad this February, raking in nine medals, and winning at seat at the National Science Olympiad Competition wasn’t enough for this team of 19 Olympiads.
They have set their sights on competing in the Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology (BEST), a national six-week robotics competition in the United States held this coming October designed to help interest middle school and high school students in possible engineering careers.
The Silver High Science Olympiad team is in its third year and is sponsored by science educator Mr. Nathan Nolan. “This year our team received support from the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration Foundation, and the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics to expand our program and purchase the equipment to compete in BEST and Botball,” said Nolan.
Botball includes programing of robotic equipment to “respond to stimuli and solve emergency situations”, according to Nolan. What does that mean? A Roomba vacuum with a robotic arm races around an obstacle course for three-minutes to complete a variety of emergency-themed tasks like moving a “blue” water cube to quench a “red” fire cube or transporting figurines to a hospital zone to receive treatment. Points are awarded when the robot successfully completes designated tasks. The robot is autonomous, that means no remote controls for competing students just their ingenuity and programing of a standardize kit of materials.
The support received sent three Olympiads to attend a computer and robotic coding workshop in Albuquerque. Kief Gonzales, a Senior, was one of the students who attended the workshop, “They gave us a cheat sheet for coding.”
“We have to program it to have the camera work and detect colors,” said Melony Harwood, a Junior. “We don’t know where the objects will be, so the robot has to detect and respond from our coding.”
Sophomore Marcela Johnson has been competing in Science Olympiad since she was in 6th grade, when Nolan sponsored the team at La Plata Middle School. She admits it is a “nerd sport,” but these self-proclaimed nerds competed on the day of Silver High’s Prom, placing third in the state for Botball and winning Rookies of the Year award, before they traveled back to dance all night with the rest of their peers.
The team qualified for Botball International competition in Oklahoma, but might not be able to attend, so they are fund raising and planning for next year’s calendar of competitions.
Their biggest challenge, beside the other teams from all 50 states competing at the National Science Olympiad: Sophomore Sarah Stanley says it best, “Our biggest challenge is procrastination itself.”
Nolan hopes next year to add supercomputing to rooster of events in the teams’ repertoire, but that will require more community support as the Olympiads head out to Oklahoma in July to hopefully win at the national level.
The Science Olympiad Team members are Reagan Barragan, Kief Gonzales, Justice Guillory, Melody Harwood, Gabbi Hughes, Marcela Johnson, Mikaela Johnson, Dannika Maldonado, Tyrell Marek, Parker McMillan, Sheena Merino, Caoilfhionn Nolan, Anayah Peru, Nicole Rodriguez, Cole Rogers, Lonnie Sandoval, Sarah Stanley and Doug Stone.
For more information contact Nolan at nnolan@silverschools.org.
About the Science Olympiad (GENERAL ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION)
Founded in 1984, Science Olympiad is one of the premier science competitions in the nation, providing rigorous, standards-based challenges to nearly 8,000 teams in all 50 states. The nonprofit host 450 tournaments annually on college campuses and hold professional development workshops that showcase innovative science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). For more information, visit https://www.soinc.org/.