Three St. Albert science squads brought home the gold after outsmarting the competition at last weekend's Science Olympics.
Two teams from Paul Kane and one from Sir George Simpson won gold overall Saturday at the 24th annual Edmonton Science Olympics. Run by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta, the all-day event at the Shaw Conference Centre ran some 500 students through a marathon of intellectual challenges to boost their interest in science and engineering.
Teams received gold, silver or bronze overall awards based on their total score across the day's events. Paul Kane was one of four high schools to make gold, said coach Michael Ng.
Paul Kane team member Ayisha Mitha said they initially thought they had been shut out of the awards, as they had made disastrous showings in two events and didn't win silver or bronze. (The gold winners were announced last.)
"All of a sudden they're calling us up for gold. That was a huge shock."
It was also a bit confusing, as the announcer simply said "Paul Kane" without specifying which team won, Ng said. They soon learned that both squads had made the podium, making them the first Paul Kane teams to win gold overall since 2013.
"I was like, wow!" Ng said.
The Purple Storm, Gish Howlers and 2017 Tigers from Elmer S. Gish got bronze, silver and silver awards in the Division One category, said coach Melissa Zawaduk.
Division One and Two teams from Ronald Harvey and Robert Rundle also won silver at Saturday's event.
Comeback kings
High-school teams had to complete one take-home experiment and six mystery events. This year's take-home project was to build a remote-controlled sub that could navigate an obstacle course in three minutes – a challenging task just three teams completed successfully, Ng said.
The Paul Kane teams were working on their subs until the last moment, with many team-members arriving at the Shaw with less than three hours of sleep, Mitha said.
Student Tyrrell Good had the additional handicap of never having met most of his teammates – most of his squad was unavailable on competition day, so Ng had to call in some reservists.
"We met on the day of the competition," said Jackson Bryan, one of those reservists.
The Paul Kane squads had a rough start to the competition. Water got into Team One's S.S. Hope It Works during testing, shorting out one of the circuit-boards and scuttling the craft before its maiden voyage. The smaller pill-bottle-based ship designed by Good and Team Two worked, but was too buoyant to dive.
"It was a pretty good boat," said Good, who planned to add weights to it for its next voyage.
Team Two had some success with its next challenge to build a mousetrap-powered vehicle from scraps, and even hit on the idea of using balloons for grip, Bryan said – an idea soon copied by virtually every other team. Mitha said Team One's attempt fell over and moved backwards, and was subject to derisive laughter from other schools.
Team Two took first in the geodesic dome challenge, where students had to build a structure out of paper that could support heavy magazines.
"It wasn't even complete," Good said of the team's dome, but it still managed to support 44 magazines.
Team One did well at an Amazing-Race style event where they had to complete four consecutive 15-minute challenges, Mitha said.
The team needed less than five minutes to complete the mineral identification and code-cracking exercises, and also managed to solve a workplace injury mystery and build a grabber claw using straws, sticks and elastic bands.
Both teams said they were a bit disappointed that they weren't able to take home the big yellow Lego goblets that were presented for first prize – more so when Ng showed them the plaques and medals he got when he took part in the Science Olympics. (Winners received a small Lego trophy to build at home.) Still, they also said they came away with a big boost to their confidence.
"I accomplished something for once!" said Good.
