By Rachel Hergett MSU NEWS SERVICE
BOZEMAN — The average age of students on the Montana State
University campus declined noticeably on Tuesday, as around 1,400 middle and
high school students competed in the annual Montana Science Olympiad.
One middle school competition called Mission Possible asked
students to build a Rube Goldberg machine, which effectively moves a golf ball
20 centimeters. In between the initial dropped ball and its final resting
point, the device could feature any or all of a dozen actions to increase the
score and attempt to get the final running time between 61 and 90 seconds.
Lucy Waller, a 12-year-old seventh grader from Belgrade Middle
School, chose to compete in the Mission Possible event because she saw it as a
challenge.
“It had a lot to do with engineering, which is really fun,”
Waller said.
That challenge was compounded when she realized — only a couple
days before the competition — that she had been building a machine based on
outdated rules.
In the spirit of competition, fueled by coffee on late nights of
building, Waller went right back to work. Her new machine featured a fishing
rod, parts of a matchbox car track and a fan-powered sailboat with human
figurines acting as counterweights. But with little time to troubleshoot, one
of the mechanisms malfunctioned and Waller had to give the golf ball a little
push to keep it moving. She still took sixth place overall.
A pair of sixth graders from Libby Middle School, Riley McNew
and Haileigh Sarbaum, spent two months on their Mission Possible design for the
challenge, which was based around a water pressure timer. Increase the pressure
and a tube with water to raise the golf ball would fill faster; decrease the
pressure and the device would take longer to fill. McNew said she learned about
water pressure in school but was interested in diving deeper. Plus, the ability
to adjust on the fly would allow the team to better fit the time constraints of
the competition.
“It feels good to see it all come together,” McNew said.
The 35th annual Montana Science Olympiad is believed to be the
largest state competition to date, said Suzi Taylor, director of the Science
Math Resource Center in MSU’s College of Education, Health and Human
Development, which organizes the event. Around 1,400 Montana students from 63
middle schools and 57 high schools competed.
“They’re practicing and competing like a sports team,” Taylor
said.
Students find time after school or on weekends to prepare for
the competition, whether that means designing a vehicle for one of the building
events, studying core knowledge in subjects such as astronomy or heredity, or
practicing for laboratory events.
“These are kids who have self-selected to do really rigorous
science and engineering work,” said Taylor, illustrating her point with a list
of the astronomical objects high school students must be able to identify as
printed in the event rules, including GW151226 (a gravitational wave signal),
NGC 2623 (a galaxy) and SN UDS10Wil (a supernova).
In a lab on the third floor of Norm Asbjornson Hall, high
schoolers competed in a building competition using gravity to propel a vehicle
down a ramp and then to a specified spot on the floor. Sam Duerr’s car did a
nice little turn at the end of the run, stopping within a foot of the target.
The turn wasn’t planned, the Hamilton High School sophomore said. The vehicle
design included wing nut brakes on the rear axle, one of the most common
braking systems in the competition. For Duerr, the right side had been locking
up first. The car didn’t stop as close to the target as it had in practice runs
taken on the wood gym floors back home.
“I’m still pretty proud of how it did,” Duerr said.
Hamilton High went on to win the team competition.
In addition to the competitive aspect, Taylor sees the Montana
Science Olympiad as a way to introduce students from smaller towns to the
university experience. Students heard remarks from Jason Carter, MSU vice
president for research, economic development and graduate education, and
astrophysicist Angela Des Jardins, director of the Montana Space Grant
Consortium, at the opening ceremony. Carter, himself, competed in meteorology,
computer programming and quiz bowl events for Science Olympiad in Michigan from
sixth grade to his senior year.
“It allowed me to understand and learn the scientific process
from a very young age, and that has served me well throughout my career,” he
told the audience.
After a morning of competitive events, students were invited to
tour labs and studios across campus and spend time learning from faculty and
staff.
“Our university welcomes these young achievers in a top-level
academic way,” Taylor said.
