User:Stechnoblade

Stechnoblade was on the Garnet Valley Middle School team in the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 seasons.

Stechnoblade is on the Garnet Valley High School Science Olympiad team in the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 seasons.

Stechnoblade won "Head of Grammar Police" in the 2024 Scioly.org Superlatives.

Stechnoblade
General Information
Years in SO	4
Current Team	Garnet Valley High School
Grade	10th
State	Pennsylvania
Division	C
Medals
Total medals	24
Invitational medals	15
Regional medals	4
State medals	5
Gold medals	6
Competitor Info
Competitions attended	23
Invitationals attended	17
Regionals attended	3 (2023, 2024, 2025)
States attended	3 (2023, 2024, 2025)
Events competed in	Over 21
Volunteering
Years volunteered	2
Number of competitions volunteered at	5
Number of tests written	15
Social Media
Discord	Stechnoblade

Division B Reflection

Dear no one (because I don't think people visit this page),

I went into SciOly in 7th grade not expecting much out of it. I barely studied and only put real effort into a select few events, namely Disease Detectives and Sounds of Music. The day of regionals came, I was an alternate. I played War Thunder while sitting on the ground next to an outlet at Abington. Then my failed Sounds of Music grind, then the day of states. I played Valorant in the cafe with a high schooler like the useless team member I was.

Then 8th grade rolled around, and I started putting effort into the club. I medaled here and there, honestly more times than I expected. I honestly spent too much time on Flight. I could've chosen to spend those 69 hours (I'm not kidding) on math, sleep, or even other events, but Flight was by far a favorite event of mine (ROI on time spent wasn't good though lmao). PA States 2024 came and went with an enjoyable experience? Contemplating going into Division C next year during the awards ceremony was definitely not fun though.

If you don't count the countless hours wasted spent, the internal team quarrels, and the irreversible eardrum damage I caused my teammates from my loud clapping, Division B was a fun experience. I made plenty of new friends and learned immeasurable amounts of knowledge that the science classes at GVMS would never teach me.

I look forward to actually going to in-person invitationals and meeting more new people next year, and hopefully I actually medal in Division C.

Well, an era of my SciOly career is over now. Time to see what Division C has in store to offer...

7th Grade (2022-2023)

2022-2023 was the first season in which Stechnoblade made it onto the GVMS SciOly team. He started out by taking Anatomy & Physiology, Bio Process Lab, Disease Detectives, and Fast Facts. He once waltzed into the Bio Process Lab testing room with nothing but a TI-30XIIS and somehow scored third place. He placed well in all of his events (challenge test wise), and only trailed behind the top 3-4 leaders of each event (except SOM).

A drawing of the canjo (with instructions on how to play) that Stechnoblade built for Sounds of Music in the 2022-2023 season.

I'm pretty sure I attended the same competitions this year as 8th grade except Stemboost.

Pennsylvania Southeast Regionals

Stechnoblade attended the Pennsylvania Southeast Regionals as an alternate for his team. His team placed 1st for the first time in Garnet Valley Middle School history.

Sounds of Music

After being an alternate during the Pennsylvania Southeast Regionals, Stechnoblade decided he wanted to be apart of the states team, so he worked day and night to become first in an event. He labored on his canjo for about 2-3 weeks before finally finishing it. When he brought it to a team meeting he was met with mixed opinions (mostly bad ones). He was able to complete his SOM binder too and become second place in SOM (first if the teachers released the third test score). He was unfortunately unable to make it onto the states team due to his lack of strong events.

Pennsylvania States

Even after a failed attempt at getting into the states team by grinding Sounds of Music, Stechnoblade was still able to go to Penn State Altoona as an alternate. He was able to take two trial events, Ichthyology and Microbe Mission. He placed 8th and 6th respectively. Garnet Valley Middle School placed 8th at states.

Top 10 Favorite Events

1. Sounds of Music
2. Bio Process Lab
3. Geoguessr (Rickards)
4. Crime Busters
5. Fast Facts
6. Disease Detectives
7. Ornithology (BirdSO & Lexington)
8. Anatomy & Physiology
9. Microbe Mission (PA States)
10. Ichthyology (PA States)

Lexington Invitational

This is here because Stechno found the event schedule while cleaning out his files. Stechnoblade took (according to the schedule) Anatomy and Physiology, Bio Process Lab, Crime Busters, Disease Detectives, Sounds of Music, Applied Mathematics, Ornithology, and Science(???Idk what this is). Sounds of Music was trialed due to the event supervisor not finishing the test, so the instrument testing part was only scored. His partner did not contact him at all to record so Stechnoblade recorded the Sounds of Music video 1 hour before the submission deadline. He got 4th place (if his memory serves correctly, Duosmium doesn't show)

Woahh here are the placements for Lexington because he found the schedule and Duosmium has results :D

Event	Lexington Invitational
Anatomy and Physiology	15th
Bio Process Lab	14th
Crime Busters	11th
Disease Detectives	14th
Sounds of Music (Trialed)	4th (Trialed)
Applied Mathematics	???
Ornithology	???
Science(Idk what this event is)	???

Events!

2022-2023 Events Taken
Anatomy & Physiology	Bio Process Lab	Crime Busters
Disease Detectives	Fast Facts	Sounds of Music

Medals!

2022-2023 Medals
Rickard's Invitational Geoguessr (trial)	4th
Lexington Invitational Sounds of Music (trial)	4th

States!

2023 Pennsylvania States
Ichthyology	8th
Microbe Mission	6th

8th Grade (2023-2024)

For the 2023-2024 season, Stechnoblade has planned on taking Anatomy & Physiology, Can't Judge a Powder, Crime Busters, Experimental Design, Disease Detectives, Fast Facts, Flight, Optics, Microbe Mission, Road Scholar, Wheeled Vehicle, and Wind Power.

Rickards Invitational

Stechnoblade took Microbe Mission, Fast Facts, Lean Mean Meme Machine, GeoGuessr, Ornithology, and We've Got Your Number for the Rickards Invitational. Sadly, the coaches did not give Stechnoblade Disease Detectives, which seemed to have an amazing test. For LMMM, his partner ditched him, resulting in Stechnoblade drawing Gru in his on-site meme with hair (Gru is bald). Stechnoblade completely forgot that he was assigned Microbe Mission until about two days before the testing date, but his partner made a cheat sheet for him. They still bombed the test though. Fast Facts was ok, with him and his partner getting a good chunk of the grid filled. Stechno somehow got 1st in GeoGuessr despite spending all of his preparation time adding and formatting every single country and US state capital for it to not be tested on. Ornithology was fun, he made a binder and bought a field guide, but his partner wasn't the most cooperative. We've Got Your Number was horrible, he is still confused to this day on how he placed 17th.

Dick Smith Memorial Invitational

Stechnoblade took Crime Busters, Fast Facts, Microbe Mission, and Ichthyology for the Dick Smith Memorial Invitational. During the Crime Busters test, Stechnoblade and his partner were led into a false sense of security on who committed the crime, leading to a 24th place. His Fast Facts partner ditched him, resulting in a botched 45th place. Ichthyology was full of ID, and Stechno sucked at ID. Microbe Mission was stressful, with his partner promising that he had a cheat sheet but sending him a blank Google Document the night before.

For the potluck that was hosted during the competition, he brought 3 Toblerone bars, which were promptly consumed within the hour.

Rustin Invitational

Stechnoblade took Disease Detectives, Fast Facts, Flight, and Optics for Rustin. For Disease Detectives, he won't say anything bad about his partner but she brought Munchkins to the invite so bonus points for good food. For Fast Facts, he had the same partner from Dick Smith, so he was afraid that she would ditch him again. Thankfully, she was only slightly late. They still failed though. For Flight, he got a 1:54 flight time(not bad for first time), but barely medalled :( For Optics, he was assigned a kid who didn't even know the Law of Reflection. During the laser shoot portion, Stechnoblade spent half of the time looking for a computer mouse, only to realize he didn't need one. No one from any of the three GVMs teams medalled at Rustin. Big sad :(

He also brought 2 Toblerone bars for Rustin. They were stored in his backpack, but after finishing a test he noticed that half of the chocolate in one bar was missing. I wonder why...

STEMBoost Invitational

Stechnoblade took Disease Detectives, Experimental Design, Fast Facts, Flight, and Optics for the STEMBoost Invitational. The Disease Detectives test was wack with weird math and like 40% vocab. Fast Facts was amazing, his partner actually studied and shared a spreadsheet with him. Stechno grinded Quizlets for the whole week and it paid off. He spent way too much trying to record for Flight. He started in a gym with AC, but that didn't work, so he then moved to the other gym and got a sweet 2:24.92 for 6th place. His partner touched the plane a total of one time during the video(I think). Optics was fun, it was his first time doing a laser shoot. He and Biblio used 4 mirrors and spammed 45 degree angles to get 60 millimeters off. The test was pretty nice too, albeit a bit short and with Div C material.

BirdSO

At first, the GVMS coaches did not sign up for BirdSO within the registration date. But Stechno saw the Ornithology trial, so he knew he had to compete in BirdSO. He did some convincing with his coaches, and the coaches did some convincing with the tournament director (or something like that), and now his team had 3-4 days to prepare! He also helped in schedule creation.

Stechnoblade took Can't Judge a Powder, Disease Detectives, Experimental Design, Flight, and Ornithology for the BirdSO Invitational (Virtual). This was his first experience taking CJAP for an invitational, and he did quite well in his opinion, placing 19th(20th now because Daniel Wright appealed for something idk). Disease Detectives was honestly a fun test, but he was so close yet so far from medalling. Experimental Design was a train wreck, he and his partners played boat simulator with the tin foil and pennies provided. Flight wasn't his best work, with him getting a time of 2:12.74. Ornithology was an absolute disappointment. The 18 hours spent was all in vain.

Southeast Pennsylvania Regionals

Stechnoblade took Can't Judge a Powder, Disease Detectives, Flight, and Optics for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Regionals. He spent the time during impound trimming his plane (got a 2:02) and birding. He and his partner arrived to Disease Detectives a few minutes late because of the insane amount of stairs but still got 1st. During Flight, his plane hit the ceiling, got redirected, and crashed on both official flights(0:24 and 0:53). Somehow he got 3rd place. For Can't Judge a Powder, his partner realized that she forgot her apron and goggles, so Stechno had to run across campus to fetch them. He arrived about 8 minutes late, but they still got 1st. For Optics, he and his partner got the highest score on the test, but during the laser shoot the laser beam hit the side of a mirror so their LSS score was a 16. Big sad. Garnet Valley Middle School got second place with 75 overall points, the same as their last year's winning score. However, it appears that Bala Cynwyd has stepped up their SciOly game this year, winning with 66 points overall.

Lexington

Stechnoblade took Disease Detectives, Flight, Road Scholar, and Ornithology for the Lexington invitational. While trimming for Flight on Wednesday (after the tests since builds got pushed back), he noticed the extremely low flight times and the extremely strong AC pushing the plane down. He shrugged it off and moved onto filming. During filming, his plane decided to not be aerodynamic for some reason and got pushed down to the ground even faster, resulting in a time of 6.31 seconds(the wing cradle broke while he was running back with the plane). He somehow got 8th place out of the 9 teams that did flight.

Pennsylvania States

Stechnoblade took Air Trajectory, Disease Detectives, Flight, and Optics for the 2024 Pennsylvania State Tournament. For Air Trajectory, he was a filler partner, only helping with aligning the device. Stechnoblade had no part in the creation of the Air Trajectory device. His partner didn't read the rules regarding design logs and wasn't able to use his design log during the competition. This lead to a disastrous 25th place. The Disease Detectives test was very average and bland. It was basically cheat sheet recall and calculator spam, nothing special. Flight was pretty fun. Stechnoblade met up with Bananasaurus during impound period, in which Banana helped fix Stechno's plane. The venue's ceiling height was 25 feet. He got a 2:17.38 for his first flight. During 4th block he watched in despair as Harlan Rowe's plane beat him by 4 seconds. For Optics he got hard carried by his partner. All he did was answer 3 MCQs, do a ray tracing diagram, 3d print out the LSS template, and fill in the Scantron form. For the LSS, they used a 3d printed piece that Stechno printed. In addition to a 5th mirror, this gave them 1 centimeter off the target point.

Top 10 Favorite Events (2024 edition)

1. Flight (69.6 hours)
2. Disease Detectives (12.7 hours)
3. Can't Judge a Powder (2.6 hours)
4. Ornithology (25.2 hours)
5. GeoGuessr (3.5 hours)
6. Optics (12.2 hours)
7. Fast Facts (7.5 hours)
8. Crime Busters (0.2 hours)
9. Anatomy and Physiology (5.2 hours)
10. Lean Mean Meme Machine (1.2 hours)
11. Fermi Questions (Honorable Mention)

Placements!

Event	Rickards	Dick Smith Memorial	Rustin	Stemboost	BirdSO(Virtual)	Southeast Pennsylvania Regionals	Lexington	Pennsylvania States	Event Average
Air Trajectory	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	25th	25
Can't Judge a Powder	-	-	-	-	20th	1st	-	-	10.5
Crime Busters	-	24th	-	-	-	-	-	-	24
Disease Detectives	-	-	22nd	27th	11th	1st	3rd	3rd	12.8
Experimental Design	-	-	-	52nd	51st	-	-	-	51.5
Fast Facts	48th	45th*	30th	5th	-	-	-	-	32
Flight	-	-	13th	6th	12th*	3rd	8th*	3rd	8.4
Microbe Mission	31st	24th	-	-	-	-	-	-	27.5
Optics	-	-	40th	21st	-	6th	-	1st	22.33
Road Scholar	-	-	-	-	-	-	10th	-	10
Trials
GeoGuessr	1st	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1
Ichthyology	-	12th	-	-	-	-	5th	-	8.5
Lean Mean Meme Machine	14th*(Medalled)	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	14
Ornithology	11th (Medalled)	-	-	-	15th	-	4th^	-	10
We've Got Your Number	17th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	17
Overall Team Placement	64th Last of the GVMS teams	41st Last of the GVMS teams	43rd Second of the GVMS teams	40th First of the GVMS Teams	51st First of the GVMS Teams	2nd	8th	8th
Event Average (w/o trials)	39.5	31	26.25	22.2	23.5	2.75	7	8
Event Average (w/ trials)	20.33	26.25	-	-	21.8	-	6

* = Partner ditched me :(

^= Event was soloed

9th Grade (2024-2025)

Stechnoblade is planning on focusing on Bungee Drop, Chemistry Lab, Disease Detectives, Helicopter, and Material Science this year. He also wants to do Anatomy, Microbe, and Optics for fun.

Highlands

Stechnoblade used a 2021 JH Div B helicopter for Helicopter and got 4th with 40ish seconds. It got stuck on the descent...

Dick Smith Memorial

Stechnoblade was allowed to do Bungee by himself for DSM and he ended up hitting the ground both times as well as (probably) getting tiered. He also has no idea how he won Helicopter with only 1:59, a low time in his eyes. The Ecology test was insanely free, but he and his partner probably sillied some problems. The Disease test was the exact opposite, probably the hardest he ever took. He's is probably going to get publicly shamed for his terrible performance.

Garnet Valley HS got 2nd as a team but only because they didn't no show any events.

Battle at Valley Forge (Conestoga)

This was Stechno's first in-person invitational! He did very well, almost getting 4 medals but missing the EXPD one by a single place. He watched in despair as Blaze's helicopter beat his time (2:11.08) by 4 seconds in the wrestling gym and beating Syosset's time by 0.25 seconds, getting 1st.

Garnet Valley HS did extremely well in builds when compared to the rest of the PA teams, hopefully keeping the momentum going for the rest of the year and beating Rustin at states for builds.

North Pocono

Stechno did Bungee Drop, Disease Detectives, Helicopter, and Optics (filler) at North Pocono. It was nice having a real homeroom and exploring North Pocono HS. For Bungee Drop, they hit the ground (just barely) on the first time, got 15cm on the second drop, and then somehow were the second people to get the bonus drop by 5th block. Everyone who didn't hit the ground medaled. For Disease, the test was extremely easy, basically meet sheet copy & paste at that point, but Stechno and his partner wrote on the test, and not the answer sheet, so he had to copy down the answers again, finishing the test with 40 seconds left and no time to double check. It was ok though since they got 2nd. For Helicopter, he met up with Ryan from WWPS and ended up flying with Blaze and Ryan in the same testing block, but only got 1:58.94. This would mark his end of doing Helicopter since Blaze was consistently better at this point.

Most of the team had to leave before awards, with some members staying behind to pick up medals and the trophy. We ended up watching the awards ceremony live streamed on the bus.

Princeton

Stechno did Bungee Drop, Disease Detectives, and Experimental Design at Princeton. First off, our homeroom in room 16 of Robertson Hall was amazing, we had a whole lecture room to ourselves. Secondly, there were 7 blocks and Stechno had his 3 events cramped in the last 3 blocks, so he got to explore the campus for the first half of the day. He did things like trying to find someone and somewhere to print Krusty's Microbe meet sheet, walking down to the lake to see the waterfowl, and taking the previous year's Disease test. His events were eh. Experimental was 11th, but there was a scoring issue with the points from significant figures just disappearing. Disease was bad, his normal partner had to go to a debate competition, so he had a filler. The test was weird too, so he only got 15th. For Bungee, he got a total score of 33cm, missing bonus, since his datapoints significantly overestimated ending up with higher distances from the bottom. It was possible that it had something to do with the barebones testing apparatus though.

After the testing ended, part of the team went on a campus tour, while the other half walked to Bent Spoon to buy some of the best ice cream there ever was. Fun stuff.

GVHS got 1st in builds against all of the other cracked schools there, mainly thanks to Meme Cube carrying.

SOUP (UPenn)

Stechno did Bungee Drop, Disease Detectives, and Helicopter at SOUP. Helicopter was only because they were unstacked, which means he's probably only doing Bungee and DD at regionals and states. For Bungee Drop, it was right outside their homeroom in McNeil. Very convenient, but walking to David Rittenhouse Labs for Disease was a pain. For the actual Bungee comp, the supervisors measured the drop height from the bottom of the bottle to the floor instead of the top of the bottom, throwing off all of his previous calculations, getting 19cm on the 370cm drop and 14cm on the 380cm drop and bonus, resulting in 26.4, which is pretty bad. For Disease, he thought the test was pretty easy for an invite like SOUP, and that he and Biblio sillied many questions so they wouldn't be able to place in this competitive environment, but his gut was wrong and ended up placing 1st (136) with an 8 point lead in front of 2nd (128). For Helicopter, many people complained about having to launch while bending down as well as the ceiling quality. During the morning, he got 2:03 when he flew in his own homeroom, but the more cramped environment at the actual room led to him getting only 1:56.41, a terrible showing for his last Helicopter competition of the year. He got 6th in Heli, losing to 5th by 9 milliseconds, which is literally up to timer reaction times. Blaze won with 2:18.95, so Stechno's never doing Helicopter for the rest of the season because there's a better teammate for it. Overall, it was very fun competing at SOUP except that the builds were a bit scuffed.

Stechno also met many different people during the day. He met up with Bananasaurus and Summer again, and finally met Desky (who quizzed me on DD memory items right after we shook hands). Some other notable people include Parth (WWPN), How (Fairfax), UWU (Brooklyn Tech), Talbo (Parkland), Birbble (Lower Merion), and Jibby Jr (CVHS at Chipotle).

GVHS got 1st in builds once again due to Meme Cube hard carrying most of them.

Regionals

Stechno did Bungee Drop and Disease Detectives at regionals. For Bungee, he got 8.9cm on the first drop and 0.4cm on the second with bonus, resulting in 7.44. This is the lowest score he's gotten for Bungee this season. Disease is not to be talked about.

Garnet Valley High School matched their school record by getting 4th at regionals. He hopes to contribute to a 3rd place trophy next season.

Pennsylvania States

Stechno did Bungee Drop and Disease Detectives at states. For Bungee he got 2cm on the first drop and 10cm on the second with bonus, resulting in 9.6, which was decent enough. He and his partner sillied Disease and weren't able to break the top 5.

It was a very rainy morning, and he got very soaked before making it to the homeroom. However, the rain cleared up later in the day. There was also a fire right off of the PSU Altoona campus, which was a very interesting experience to watch as the firefighters heroically battled the flames. He met up with many friends from other PA schools like LMHS, SSA, Parkland, and HRMS.

Garnet Valley High School broke their school record at states, getting 6th for the first time (previous record was 8th). This was a tremendous achievement that he hopes to help his team break the next season.

Top 5 Favorite Events (2025 edition)

1. Helicopter (141.4 hours)
2. Disease Detectives (34.5 hours)
3. Bungee Drop (110.7 hours)
4. Experimental Design (1.2 hours)
5. Ornithology (Honorable mention)

Placements!

Event	Highlands	Dick Smith Memorial	Battle at Valley Forge (Conestoga)	North Pocono	Princeton	SOUP	Southeast Pennsylvania Regionals	Pennsylvania States
Bungee Drop	6th	16th	6th	8th	10th	13th	3rd	4th
Disease Detectives	9th	15th	7th	2nd	15th	1st	7th	7th
Ecology	-	13th	-	-	-	-	-	-
Experimental Design	-	-	8th	-	11th	-	-	-
Helicopter	4th	1st	3rd	5th	-	6th	-	-
Optics	-	-	-	39th	-	-	-	-
Overall Team Placement	4th	2nd	16th	6th	9th	13th (Superscored)	4th	6th

10th Grade (2025-2026)

Stechnoblade is planning on retaining his spot for Disease Detectives and Bungee Drop on the A team from the previous year and possibly getting Chemistry Lab and Material Science. He is doing Experimental Design and Helicopter for fun.

Mason Invitational

Bungee score: -30

Dick Smith Memorial

Bungee score: -31. Disease Detectives was an insanely easy test. Chemistry Lab was also relatively easy and he got carried by his partner.

Placements!

Event	Mason	Dick Smith Memorial	Battle at Valley Forge (Conestoga)
Bungee Drop	3rd	1st	2nd
Chemistry Lab	54th	2nd	2nd
Disease Detectives	12th	2nd	5th
Experimental Design	28th	-	-
Materials Science	93rd	10th	14th
Overall Team Placement	16th	3rd	9th

Testwriting

Season	Tournament	Date	Event	Role	Link	Notes
2023-2024	Dunbar Invitational	Cancelled :(	Crime Busters B	Cowriter		Cowritten with Viola
			Disease Detectives B	Cowriter	Maybe :)	Cowritten with Kokonattsu and Outis
			Fermi Questions C	Cowriter		Cowritten with Shrey and Dea
			GeoGuessr (Trial) B/C	Writer
	Zilch Scrimmage	Never took off	Fast Facts B	Cowriter		Cowritten with Bluerobin and Midfloat
	Scioly.org Event Challenges 2024 (SEC)	6/3-7/31	Disease Detectives B	Cowriter	Link	Cowritten with Viola
	Captain's Summer Exchange Div C 2024 (CSE)	Summer	Disease Detectives C	Writer
2024-2025	Rickards Invitational	11/2-11/9	Helicopter B/C	Co-ES
			Fermi Questions B	Cowriter	Link
			Fermi Questions C	Cowriter	Link
			Ornithology B	Cowriter	Link
			Ornithology C	Cowriter	Link
			Bungee Drop C	ES		Had to swap in last moment to grade
	Mason Invitational	11/16-11/24	Disease Detectives B	Cowriter	Link	Cowritten with Kenneth Liu
	SealSO	12/7-12/14	Metric Mastery B	Cowriter
			Disease Detectives C	Cowriter		Cowritten with Kokonattsu
			Helicopter B/C	Co-ES
			Bungee Drop C	Co-ES
	Captain's Summer Exchange Div C 2025 (CSE)	Summer	Disease Detectives C	Writer
2025-2026	Mason Invitational	11/15-11/23	Minecraft Mission B/C	Co-ES

Format taken from RZ2004 with permission