Edison Academy Magnet School Science Olympiad


Please contact sciolymca@gmail.com if you have any questions.

What is Science Olympiad?


Science Olympiad is a team STEM competition in which nearly 8,000 middle school and high school teams compete each year. There are 23 different events pertaining to various fields of science, including earth science, biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Events come in three basic categories: build, test, and lab and are generally done with one or more partners.

In the past, our team has participated in invitational competitions at universities such as MIT, Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, Brown, and many others. In addition, our team is regularly competitive at the regional and state levels!

We compete in Division C, the division for students from 9-12.

What are our accomplishments?


We placed 6th at the 2022 NJ Science Olympiad State Tournament.
We medaled in 6 events: Chem Lab, Codebusters, Detector Building, Dynamic Planet, Ornithology, and Remote Sensing

We placed 5th at the 2021 NJ Science Olympiad State Tournament.
We medaled in 9 events: Chem Lab, Circuit Lab, Codebusters, Designer Genes, Experimental Design, Forensics, Machines, Protein Modeling, and Sounds of Music

We placed 2nd at the 2022 CMU Science Olympiad Invitational
We medaled in 16 events (including 11 Gold medals!):

We placed 9th at the 2021 Harvard-Brown Invitational

We were top 10 in Astronomy, Chemistry Lab, Codebusters, Environmental Chemistry, and Remote Sensing at the 2022 UPenn Science Olympiad Invitational

Events


Life, Personal & Social Science

Anatomy and Physiology

Participants will be assessed on their understanding of the anatomy and physiology for the human Cardiovascular, Lymphatic, and Excretory systems.
Link to SOINC page

Disease Detectives

Participants will use investigative skills in the scientific study of disease, injury, health, and disability in populations or groups of people.
Link to SOINC page

Ecology

Participants will answer questions involving content knowledge and process skills in the area of ecology and adaptations in featured North American biomes.
Link to SOINC page

Forestry

Participants will be assessed on their general forestry knowledge and the trees found in the United States that are on the 2024 Official Science Olympiad National Tree List.
Link to SOINC page

Microbe Mission

Teams will answer questions, solve problems and analyze data pertaining to microbes.
Link to SOINC page

Earth and Space Science

Astronomy

Teams will demonstrate an understanding of Stellar Evolution: Star Formation & Exoplanets.
Link to SOINC page

Dynamic Planet

Participants will demonstrate an understanding of the large-scale processes affecting the structure of Earth's crust.
Link to SOINC page

Fossils

Teams identify and classify fossils and demonstrate their knowledge of ancient life. Tasks will be related to interpretation of past environments and ecosystems, adaptations, evolutionary relationships, and the use of fossils in dating and correlating rock units.
Link to SOINC page

Geologic Mapping

Teams will demonstrate understanding in the construction and use of topographic maps, geologic maps, and cross sections, and their use in forming interpretations regarding subsurface structures and past depositional environments on Earth and other planetary bodies.
Link to SOINC page

Physical Science and Chemistry

Air Trajectory

Prior to the competition, teams will design, construct, and calibrate a single device capable of launching projectiles onto a target and collect data regarding device parameters and performance.
Link to SOINC page

Chem Lab

Teams will complete one or more tasks and answer a series of questions involving the scienctific processes of chemistry focused in the areas of Periodicity and Equilibrium.
Link to SOINC page

Detector Building

Teams will build a durable ORP or Redox Probe that will accurately measure and display both voltage and the concentrations of NaCl in parts per million from 0 to 5000 ppm of different water samples.
Link to SOINC page

Forensics

Given a scenario and some possible suspects, students will perform a series of tests. These tests, along with other evidence or test results, will be used to solve a crime.
Link to SOINC page

Optics

Teams must participate in an activity involving positioning mirrors to direct a laser beam towards a target and are tested on their knowledge of geometric and physical optics.
Link to SOINC page

Wind Power

Teams construct a blade assembly device prior to the tournament that is designed to capture wind power and complete a written test on the principles of alternative energy.
Link to SOINC page

Technology and Engineering

Flight

Prior to the tournament, teams will construct, collect data on test flights, analyze and optimize a free flight rubber-powered aircraft to achieve maximum time aloft.
Link to SOINC page

Robot Tour

Teams design, build, program and test one Robotic Vehicle to navigate a track to reach a target at a set amount of time as accurately and efficiently as possible.
Link to SOINC page

Scrambler

Teams design, build, and test a mechanical device, which uses the energy from a falling mass to transport an egg along a straight track as quickly as possible and stop as close to the center of a Terminal Barrier (TB) without breaking the egg.
Link to SOINC page

Tower

Teams will design and build a Tower (Structure) meeting requirements specified in these rules to achieve the highest structural efficiency.
Link to SOINC page

Inquiry and Nature of Science

Codebusters

Teams will cryptanalyze and decode encrypted messages using cryptanalysis techniques for historical and modern advanced ciphers.
Link to SOINC page

Experimental Design

Participants will be tested on their ability to design, conduct, and report the findings of an experiment entirely on-site.
Link to SOINC page

Fermi Questions

Teams provide answers to a series of “Fermi Questions”; science related questions that seek fast, rough estimates of a quantity, which is either difficult or impossible to measure directly.
Link to SOINC page

Write It Do It

One participant will write a description of an object and how to build it. The other participant will attempt to construct the object from this description.
Link to SOINC page

Event descriptions from SOINC

Council and our Advisor


Dr. Weinstein - Advisor

Pranav Sitaraman - President
Abhay Bhaskar - President
Thomas Catuosco - Vice President
Sanjay Ravishankar - Vice President
Atri Bhattacharjee - Secretary
Srishti Hazra - Treasurer
Harinarayan AsooriSriram - Event Director for MCASO