How did you first learn of, start doing, and keep doing SciOly?

[Name]

My older sister did Science Olympiad for Beachwood when she was in HS so I heard about scioly from there.

In 6th grade I was planning on joining but there was a club fair during lunch, and I spent that time playing flight simulator or something, and I never found out where the club met because I never bothered, so I never joined.

In 7th grade, I actually went to the club fair and joined. I did Invasives, Microbe, and Disease (I loved studying infectious diseases but l just assumed disease was only on infectious diseases instead of reading the rules, so I did quite terribly). I still got to go to states, but I didn't compete there.

8th grade I did Invasives and Herp (microbe conflict sadge), and I didn't care about herp, but I did care about invasives so I did quite well in Invasives and promptly bombed herp at states. Whoops. Despite us getting 6th overall at states this year, the overall climate of our middle school team was quite chill, we goofed around a lot and most of us didn't study all that much. Oh, also I got bored one day and read old event rules, and was like huh fermi questions seemed like a fun event, too bad it's not in rotation.

Well now Fermi is in rotation again lmao. 9th grade I actually started trying due to an actually competitive environment and tried out for Fermi Questions, Microbe, and as a last-second decision also Herp. I made Team B for... Material Science and Herp. Due to a myriad of conflicts from various people and a herp-fermi conflict, I never did herp despite sweating out a binder, but hey I got to do Fermi! Until I bombed Fermi at states after being on the team really only for fermi questions (sadge). Medaling matsci was a pleasant surprise though. I spent most of this season jumping around our A, B, and C teams, which was interesting. I think the flexibility of this year's team helped in getting me to care about scioly in general.

Anyways I sweated out Fermi and Astro over the summer, and also meme tried out Code but still got it. This year was probably my peak motivation doing scioly, and sweated out Code over the season (as a team we improved from not getting a time bonus at LISO to a sub-2 at MIT). It was a very poggers season (I did feel a bit of burnout at the end of the season), and we placed 4th at states which was also very poggers.

Last year I grinded Orni and then found out I had a conflict with code, so I picked up fossils last second and was kinda terrible at it. It wasn't a particularly pretty season (some internal team issues I had), and mixed with the burnout from the end of last season I kinda lost motivation and at some points considered why I was still competing (I still went to every competition that year though). SOUP was probably the first competition I actually enjoyed since sophomore year, and of course, states was canceled on the week of states just when things seemed to be getting interesting/

This year is interesting. I'm trying to focus on team aspects moreso (don't care too much about medals as long as I don't bomb). Of course, I want to make nationals but I also just don't care about that as much as I did in the past. We have a ton of freshmen though and gotta make sure the team will remain a top states team when things return to normal (hopefully).

Anyways even though Scioly was a mixed bag of feelings with lots of ups and downs, the friends and connections I made with people on my team and people on other teams made it worth it and will last beyond Science Olympiad and HS. Getting involved with the community and ESing is also quite fun, and something I'll try to continue to do in the future, time permitting.

As someone who semi-dedicated their HS career to primarily doing Scioly, is it worth it? Yeah probably, even considering the semi-depressing ending (states canceled, and now STAR system). There might be better things to do with your time in all fairness, but I learned lots of interesting things (astro is a cool subject!) that I would have never had otherwise, and I met so many amazing people . It's a massive time commitment if you take it seriously, but I do not regret a thing.

[jimmy-bond]

The SciOly stars aligned in seventh grade for me to get started, as it was my first year of middle school and I had no intentions of doing extracurriculars. By the luck of the draw, my homeroom teacher was the SciOly coach, initially to my demise. I spent every homeroom reading or helping with homework, which caught her attention. She told me to join and give Disease Detectives a try, which I did, but I barely made the team (I was an alternative for states and I only did Green Gen and Potions and Poisons as a trial at nats). The main reason I stuck throughout the whole season was the Cup Noodles that were for sale in the SciOly refrigerator, which added way too much sodium to my bloodstream.

In eighth grade, I decided to stick with it and I wanted to actually have a role on the team this year. A good chunk of the GT students joined that year, making the program much more enjoyable. I tried the non-human bio events and I also did the greatest event of them all, Fast Facts. We made it to nationals again and we improved our placement from the previous year, from 29th to 23rd, and I now have a picture of me on stage with a polo shirt (very formal). Hawaii's not a relatively competitive state, so I told myself I'd keep on trying to go to nats because of this, and if we did make it, I'd help my team convey that we aren't too shabby.

Ninth grade was amazing. I continued to improve in my events, and I didn't really have an external motive that bound me to SciOly. While Hawaii was dealing with the false missile alert, some of the team went to a CA invitational and got an overall placement, which felt surreal at the time. We edged out Iolani at states and made it to nats again, where we got a 12th place finish that had our team in disbelief the entire ride back to the hotel. I was ecstatic to contribute to a grand (for our standards) showing before I had to do Div C.

Ah, tenth grade was the one I'll most fondly remember. In middle school, the team was split up into its sub-social groups, but it felt like a unified group. One of my teammates made a vlog for our Cornell trip that I watch from time to time for the memories. No one was hesitant to ask others for help or to tell them to work on a certain area, which is part of how I found one of my favorite events atm, Codebusters. I picked it up because no one else wanted to (and no one was hiding that fact) and I picked up two amazing teammates so we grinded to get a gold at states. That's probably the aspect of that year that defines it for me; we got 16th at nats after getting a sub-4 timed question. Of course, I was fired up for the next season even more so.

Another year means losing seniors but gaining sophomores in eleventh grade. It was our 'golden year', and that reason alone was enough to hook me. The incoming sophomores had gotten 13th at nats the previous year, our seniors were bloodthirsty in their final year, and we actually had enough people to fill out the team with some people still available. Dynamic Planet FINALLY came back to oceanography and I still had Codebusters, Water Quality, and Forensics to look forward to. But, as everyone knows, pandemics do be downers. Sad.

This year, with no in-person school until fourth quarter where it will be only one day a week, our numbers dropped as you'd expect. But, I'd be lying if I said that participating in conUS invitationals was not a constructive experience. I'd also be lying if I said I grinded especially hard this year. It's not senioritis, from my understanding, but the lack of pressure that I normally felt whenever I went to a physical competition deflated my ultra-competitive drive (the adrenaline of doing code tests is also absent and my hype quota has not been met in some time). That's sure going to come back for states in a few weeks, but for now, I'm pretty satisfied with my final year. I can finally take my foot off the accelerator for the first time since eighth grade, and I think I've enjoyed that luxury far too much.

Since it technically is relevant, I'd like to mention Iolani School and give credit where it's due. They're a huge part of my choice to stick with SciOly. The first time I've felt existential dread was in their air-conditioned gym as they proceeded to pummel our team in seventh grade, at their invite where nearly no other school placed (each school could have a few teams per event). I feel honored to have been able to face off against them year in and year out. When I saw them medal repeatedly at Bear, I was on my feet and jumping. For a school with amazing SciOly programs and coaches (although I'm certain they don't like me much), I was giddish as they could finally show off the power that everyone in Hawaii knew they possessed. Their season this year is unlike anything a team from Hawaii has ever produced. Iolani, and person/people from Iolani who I know exist(s) on the forums, mahalo.