By Danielle Smith
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Members of the science club competed in the Hawaii State Science Olympiad (HSSO) on Jan. 31, where they landed a place in fourth. In the days leading up to the competition, many of the students spent hours practicing and developed stronger friendships with their teammates
“Ultimately, I hope they just (gained) a greater passion for science and engineering. Just being able to see the things in the classroom and the different settings, and in some ways you’re able to apply what you’re learning. I’m just hoping they get more out of it than they would learning in a normal classroom,” Science Team Advisor Tyson Kikugawa said.
In the competition, students are given events that they must study and prepare for, where they will then take a test or build a machine at the competition. “They compete in events that revolved around certain areas of science, technology, engineering and math. The way it works is kind of like a track meet, where people compete based on their overall team ranking,” said Kikugawa.
For some, this is not the first time they are competing in this competition and they’ve noticed a few changes from the previous year. “This year we have a lot of new people and we lost a lot of our really good seniors. They had a lot of experience but with a new team, everyone seems like they work really hard and they study,” Junior Jacob Chang said.“There is also a couple new events going on,” Sophomore Jessica Jones added.
With so many hours spent together, members of the team have grown closer as they studied together for their given events. Kikugawa said, “When it comes to the ones who are coming in and studying and working together, they definitely do get closer.” Jones added, “In the club, a lot of us are pretty close and we’ve known each other for a while. We usually grow closer between regionals and states and then at the competition, it’s always fun to be around the whole team.”
While students continued to help each other to prepare for the competition, advisors Kikugawa and Matthew Capps played their roles in helping the students prepare. “They are both always available and when we want to study, (Kikugawa) always builds everything for us and takes time out of his very busy schedule to help us with it.” Jones said.
The advisors, as well as members of the team have already begun to prepare for the state competition, which will be held at Leeward Community College next month.