Upper Schoolers compete at MIT Science Olympiad invitational tournament

Fifteen Upper School science students traveled to MIT on January 20 for an invitational Science Olympiad tournament. Students competed with schools from across the country in 23 different science and engineering events. Some events required students to design, build, and troubleshoot an engineering problem, such as Air Trajectory, in which students built a device that launched a ball using air pressure to hit given targets, or Scrambler, in which students built a vehicle propelled by a falling mass that propels an egg as quickly as possible toward a wall a given distance a way (the goal is to stop it just before it hits the wall and scrambles the egg!). Other events are tests of knowledge in fields such as astronomy, microbiology, and forensic science, or field tests such as tree and fossil identification.

Waynflete was the top team out of the four Maine schools present, and did very well against New England schools in general, placing fifth out of 23 New England schools. Overall, against schools from California, Texas, New York, and other large states, Waynflete team’s placed 49th out of 72 teams and earned five finishes in the top half of the field.

Notable successes included a 16th-place finish in Write It Do It by Mira Levine ’24 and Kira Chown ’25. Other finishes in the top half of the field included Air Trajectory by Noah Abbott ’24 and Nik Chaney ’24, Fermi Questions by Alec Benton ’24 and Max Shurman ’24, Forestry by Elliott Werner ’25 and Kira, and Geologic Mapping by Fallon Culley ’25 and Max. Next up is our state tournament in early April in which 30 Upper Schoolers will compete with schools from around Maine.   

Team Roster: Noah Abbott ’24, Alec Benton ’24, Nik Chaney ’24, Tipton Heminway ’24, Mira Levine ’24, Aelia Russell ’24, Max Shurman ’24, Lydia Birknes ’25, Kira Chown ’25, Fallon Culley ’25, Nico Herrera ’25, Abie Waisman ’25, Elliott Werner ’25, Jasper Nichols ’26, Len Harrison ’26

Coaches: Wendy Curtis and Rowena Schenck