Capturing medals in all, but four events, Waterford’s high school varsity Science Olympiad team took the state title and qualified to compete at nationals. 

Winning the state championship has been a team goal.

“Our first year, we only had five kids go to state,” said Daniel Osipovitch, who has advised the team for the past seven years and was honored as the state’s outstanding high school coach. “We came in first in one event. The past few years, we came in fifth, then third and then second before winning this year.”

Usually, Waterford finishes behind West High in the 15-school competition, said team captain and senior Gia Weaver. 

“We’ve never beat West until this year; we consider them our rival,” she said. “We spend a lot of time practicing, prepping and preparing for the season. In the events we didn’t medal in at state, we placed in the top five.”

With only a few weeks before nationals, there wasn’t much opportunity to do additional prep work, junior Keean Kawamoto said.

“After state, we had AP (Advanced Placement) tests, then as soon as those tests were done, I spent all of my nights cramming for all of my events for Science Olympiad,” he said.

At nationals, 60 top high school teams of the 6,000 who participate across the country and from Japan gathered for the contest in Michigan.

Waterford’s 15-member team placed 45th overall at nationals with its top events being eighth in Engineering CAD and 12th in “Write It, Do It.”

The team from Fairfield Junior High in Kaysville won state middle school division and also competed at nationals.

Osipovitch said competing at the national level was a learning curve.

“We had random stuff that happened and if it hadn’t, we could have done better. There were some of the issues we couldn’t have anticipated since we had never been to nationals before,” he said. “Some of our best events crashed and burned. For example, in the flight competition, at state, our plane got double the flight time of any other plane, but the ceiling was a bit lower at nationals. The first plane went straight to the rafters and got stuck. The second plane we weren’t planning on flying because it got slightly damaged in transit so it nosedived to the floor. So, after getting nearly a perfect score at state, we didn’t do much of anything, which has never happened in four years.”

Weaver said the fragile plane sat on student’s laps during their flight to Michigan since it didn’t fit in the overhead compartment or under the seat.

Another Waterford student waited until after they arrived in Michigan to build a tower needed for a contest. He had individually wrapped each piece to ensure it wouldn’t break, but he had to stay up until 4:30 a.m. the day of the competition to complete it.

“That was the hard part for us is not knowing how to transport stuff. Some schools have vans dedicated to Science Olympiad that drive their teams’ stuff across the country to this event,” Osipovitch said.

Kawamoto said some schools not only brought 15 varsity members, but also brought 10 alternates and 10 coaches. Those schools have an independent study period, or a class designated for Science Olympiad.

“We were definitely the little fish there, but next year, I’d like us to be able to travel to California to compete against other teams to build our program. This year, we only had one in-person contest before state while the eastern schools had six in-person tournaments at Harvard, MIT, Brown, Princeton and those type of schools. We’ll be looking for some sponsors to help us,” he said, adding that at the Snow College tournament, Waterford’s varsity placed first and the middle school team got third.

The team also will need new advisers as both Osipovitch and middle school adviser Kirsten Walker are stepping down. The middle school team was new last year and placed third this year at state.

“We’re guiding the middle schoolers through the preparation, as mentors, and showing them how they can properly study and use resources, but then, they come up and make our team stronger at the high school level. We even had one person on varsity this year who was on middle school last year,” Kawamoto said.

Waterford not only has a varsity and a middle school team, but also a JV, junior JV and novice teams.

“The team has grown so much,” Weaver said. “We have 45 kids in high school and over 70 counting middle schoolers.”

Osipovitch pointed out Waterford had 16 seniors vying for varsity; rules only allow five seniors.

“It’s fairly competitive within the teams themselves,” he said. “But a big part of our success is experience. A lot of the students who are now seniors have been on Science Olympiad for several years and even if they’re not on varsity, they’re studying and helping guide others. I love seeing the kids come together to work at something and have this shared vision. They push themselves outside of the classroom and the students rally and support each other.”

It’s the teamwork that Kawamoto and Weaver also appreciate.

“The element of teamwork we have is awesome. All of us are always helping each other out and we have fun at the tournaments together,” Kawamoto said, adding that the nearer the tournament, the more time they spend together.

Weaver said there is a community within each event when working with a partner or two.

“You build friendships. Through it, you’re taking a test, but you’re really working with your friend learning things, and it’s fun. We meet kids at other schools. At nationals, we traded items and it was a great way to connect with people,” she said, noting her twin, Niko, 3D-printed Utah keychains to give to others and she made friends with someone from Hawaii who this fall will attend Duke University like she and her brother. 

Kawamoto said collaboration was stressed this year as they created 10 leadership positions.

“We divvied up what needed to be done so we had people making lab kits, people who were over the schedule,” he said, adding he and another team member coordinate the middle school team. “We got a lot more organized this year and made sure we were prepping what needed to be done since September.”

Weaver and Kawamoto competed together in forensics as one of their events.

“We’ve been studying forensics once a month for years. We created a study guide and do tests on different materials and make notes on a comprehensive Google spreadsheet,” he said. 

It paid off when one test gave them a bunch of powders, blood and hairs and asked participants to “identify as much as you can in 50 minutes,” Weaver said.

Both students got involved in Science Olympiad because of their adviser.

“I had honors chem freshman year, then I had him for AP and this year, organic chemistry,” Kawamoto said. “He’s been super impactful. Dr. O got me to join freshman year and I sucked. Forensics was my only event, and I got one question right on the test. This year, we won state on it. I like being able to think on my feet; it’s not like a standardized test where you’re being drilled information for the sake of taking a test. I like the hands-on aspect to it. Getting into the lab whether it’s electromagnetism or testing blood powders or like running a chromatography, it’s something you can do and show them you know it.”

Weaver said she happened upon a Science Olympiad meeting advised by Osipovitch her sophomore year, mid-season. 

“I like the application of what we learned here in fun topics like forensics. We’re using chemistry knowledge from our AP chemistry class, but we’re applying it to these fake crime scene situations. I’m also learning about new topics and delving deeper into those. I’ve competed in Microbe Mission, and I’ve learned it’s something I want to look into studying in college,” she said. “What’s fun is being surrounded by a lot of people who have the same love of science and engineering and being on a team in that way. We have a nice little Science Olympiad community at Waterford.” λ