Blending science and competition

Science Olympiad is a team based competition for elementary through high schoolers. What makes it special is that it combines the best of sports and science and engineering. So you think of something like track and field, you got people doing 400 meters, you've got hurdles. In Science Olympiad we also have events where like two or three people from a school's team will compete in cryptography or epidemiology, forensics, robotics, and each of these events are very carefully crafted so that the team gets to get a real taste of what that field of science is like. Each person on a team will do three to four events. You really get a broad spread of experiences while you're in Science Olympiad. You're never stuck to one field science, which as an engineer, I think that is extremely relevant to problems of our modern age that scientists and engineers are trying to conquer. Today, we have 24 teams. I think the most exciting for us is that we get teams from local like New River Valley, Appalachia area. Science Olympiad is often concentrated in places with more traditional access to science education. And that means that teams in this area of Virginia had to travel upwards of 4 hours to get to even compete. So I think we have a really, like, unique opportunity here to help students get more opportunities. "... two, one, launch." Science Olympiad has definitely changed my life. I started my journey in eighth grade, and I was like, getting an introduction and really fell in love with, like, the structure of Science Olympiad and the community. My first tournament I went to was Virginia Tech, and that was, like, when I really was sold. I credit a lot of the reason I'm here at Virginia Tech to Science Olympiad. I believe that Science Olympiad, out of all the STEM activities I know, has the most potential to change a young scientist or engineer's life.