The Cardinals Science Olympiad team won the state championship at Wichita State University on Saturday.
The team recaptured the championship after a second-place finish the previous year. But last year’s finish motivated the Cardinals to return as champions, senior Jason Ditty said.
“Getting second kind of bogged down the momentum that we were bringing in,” Ditty said. “But I knew we were going to rally together and do this this year and end up getting first.”
The Science Olympiad team consisted of 15 members and was a well-balanced attack. Students competed in 23 events. Almost every competition was under the science or engineering categories. Of the 23 events, the Cardinals medaled in 14, with three first-place finishes.
The medaled events were:
Boomilever 1st: Gracie Broers, Shay Hammerschmidt
Engineering CAD 1st Ben Pierron, Colton Jenkins,
Rocks and Minerals 1st Oscar Olivera, Wesley Swann
Anatomy and Physiology 2nd Evey Steele, Lori Brooks
Circuit lab 2nd Colton Jenkins, Wesley Swann
Codebusters 2nd Ben Pierron, Colton Jenkins, Leah Barnhart
Electric Vehicle 2nd Aubriella Curnes, Wesley Swann, Emmy Mast*
Entomology 2nd Oscar Olivera, Payden Born
Experimental Design 2nd Adria Chrislip, Aubriella Curnes, Lori Brooks
Hovercraft 2nd Evey Steele, Lillian Mueting
Remote Sensing 2nd Adria Chrislip, Leah Barnhart
Robot Tour 2nd Oscar Olivera, Payden Born, Elliot Fortner*
Water Quality 2nd Adria Chrislip, Leah Barnhart
Chemistry Lab 3rd Adria Chrislip, Colton Jenkins
Dynamic Planet 3rd Leah Barnhart, Shay Hammerschmidt
Forensics 3rd Adria Chrislip, Lori Brooks
Helicopters 3rd Jason Ditty, Lillian Mueting
*alternate who did receive a medal
The middle school also competed. The results of their competition were still being tallied early Saturday evening but will be posted on The Kansas Science Olympiad website.
The return to the top did not happen by accident. Cardinals head coach Barbie Grado noticed the results of their efforts.
“The kids worked so hard this year, and I think they weren’t going to settle for anything less,” Grado said.
The team arrived in Wichita on Friday afternoon to learn the layout of the campus and put the final tweaks on projects and study for upcoming tests. Events began at 8:30 a.m. and went into the afternoon.
At state, students got to see the result of hard work, some of which took years. Juniors Payden Born and Oscar Olivera detailed their commitment to the event Robot Tour.
“I’ve had the robot since freshman year, and we’ve just been adapting it, I guess, over the three years,” Olivera said.
The Science Olympiad also brought opportunities to fresh faces. Freshman Aubriella Curnes competed in Science Olympiad throughout middle school, but noted changes after the jump to high school.
“You have to be responsible for yourself, time management, getting all of your materials where they need to be at the same time,” Curnes said. “I feel like high school is kind of a step up your game.”
Curnes and Wesley Swann were the only two freshmen to compete for Eudora at state. The two competed together in the engineering event Electric Vehicle, where they finished second. The two also got to experience their first high school championship.
“It’s pretty awesome. It’s something we never got to experience in all of our middle school years,” Swann said. “It’s really cool being able to be around a team that’s so talented.”
While winning state was new to some, for others it was a familiar feeling. Senior Adria Chrislip won state her freshman and sophomore years before being runner-up as a junior. The return to champion meant more this time.
“This is the last time we’re going to be able to do this. It kind of hit me throughout the day,” Chrislip said. “So walking away with a gold medal in the state championship title meant a lot, not only because we got second last year, but also because it’s the last time we’re gonna do it.”
Reach reporter Trey Myers at [email protected]
This story was corrected to update a placement.
