by Jake Sims Speyer
Last Saturday, North’s science Olympiad team placed 12th out of 64 high schools from across the country at the invitational MIT Science Olympiad competition. The team, led by seniors Izzy Brand and Kavish Gandhi, competed in 23 different science-based events.
Gandhi, along with senior Rudy Gelb-Bicknell placed first in astronomy. Although the team performed worse overall than in previous years, Brand said, “we should remember that this was a much larger and more competitive group of schools.” Gandhi said he agreed, saying “I felt that the team did very well, especially considering we were short some of our regular members.”
The events consisted of either 50-minute tests which require studying beforehand or pre-built structures called “build-aheads.” In “study-aheads,” team members were tested on subjects such as astronomy or entomology. Build-aheads, such as in the event “Mission Possible,” featured devices such as Rube Goldberg machines.
However, the team has yet to beat its biggest rival, Acton-Boxborough, according to Gandhi. “Even though we did not accomplish this in the overall rankings at the invitationals, we did beat them in 10 out of 21 events across the two invitationals. This is very encouraging to me, and hopefully we can channel that success to victory at states,” said Gandhi.
North hopes to beat Acton-Boxborough at the Massachusetts States Science Olympiad this March, according to Gandhi.