January 16th marked the annual Science Olympiad regionals competition day. The PDS Science Olympiad team traveled to Camden County Community College to compete in events pertaining to various scientific fields, such as Write it Do it, Protein Modeling, and many more. The students joined Science Olympiad in the early fall and tried out for the regionals team through a number of practice tests and presentations. 

The Science Olympiad team had a fun day packed with enjoying team bonding activities, eating pizza and snacks, and talking about the individual events that each team member had participated in. Everyone worked hard in their different fields and watched others perform in their events, supporting their teammates in stressful moments. As the team waited for the results and placements of each event, they talked about how each student could learn from this experience to better prepare for their next tournament. The main areas for improvement were the build events, as none of the team’s contraptions met the size requirements, resulting in construction penalties. These penalties negatively impacted the placements in the individual events, which affected the team’s overall placement significantly. Senior co-heads Ari Nagelberg and Luigi Soriano and junior co-heads Saahith Potluri and Hannan Van Dusen hope to provide the team members with more practice tests and resources to prepare for future events. 

The PDS Upper School team placed 4th overall among 22 other teams, with students earning medals in 7 of the 14 events. Since last year, the team has lost many seniors who were crucial members in the main events, but this did not prove to be detrimental to PDS’s strength as demonstrated by a high overall ranking. Potluri reflects on the event, saying, “This tournament was the first in which all members of our team placed consistently in top rankings, and this is a testament to the development and growth to our team.”

As the Camden County Community College Regionals Tournament was the first of the year, Potluri further noted that “More senior members on the team got to hone their skills on events they had not tried before. Those who were new to the team got to grow both as a problem solver and as a student as they faced unique situations for the first time in events that were completely novel to them.” Although the PDS team had little experience going into this tournament, they came out feeling proud of their results and were eager to start preparing for the next tournament.