User:Dxu46

dxu46 was a member of the 2018 Ladue Middle School Science Olympiad team. He has been a part of Ladue Science Olympiad since 2016, when he was on the school's B team. He currently attends Ladue Horton Watkins High School

2016
In 2016 I made it onto my school's B team, which only got to compete at the Regional competition. This was my first year, and thus I didn't know a lot about Science Olympiad. I ended up mostly fooling around during meetings, and getting good work done in the events that I cared for, which were Road Scholar and Mission Possible. I had a rather unfortunate run for both of those events, Road Scholar being an event where I was the only member on the B team doing it, and Mission Possible being bad because we left our bell at our school. I did manage to join an Experimental Design team, and I had a lot of fun doing it. So my placings were 2nd in Road Scholar (I had no partner, but I still received two medals!!), 4th in Experimental Design, and 5th in Mission Possible.

Missouri Region 6 Finals

2017
This year I was determined to make the team. I signed up for as many events as I could that I had interest in, being Ecology, Experimental Design, Optics, Road Scholar, and Rocks and Minerals. I crashed and burned in Ecology and Optics, but I did very well in my other three events and made the team with them.

In Experimental Design, I was very picky. The only portions I could do were the variables, hypothesis, and the numbers. And they weren't that good. But I was still better than the other aspiring teammates, so I still made the team with this event. My partners were very knowledgeable 9th graders, so we pulled through and got 1st.

In Road Scholar, everything was simple. My future partner and I both scored very high in qualifying, me only being a point or two below him. Regionals was a pushover for us, and we won 1st place.

In Rocks and Minerals, I did not have a binder until a day before Regionals. I was making the binder throughout the 1st semester, but ultimately my focus was on other events, and progress went very slowly. To add on to that, I had no partner! Hooray for another year of 2016-Road-Scholar-Situation! But since I was on the A team, I asked a friend who was also on the team to be my partner. And, at the regional competition, we pulled through and got first.

Missouri Region 6 Finals

State was basically the same thing. In Experimental Design, we pulled through, barely, and won. In Road Scholar, we would've gotten full points if I hadn't misread a problem that was referenced later on in the Student Created Map, but we still won. In Rocks and Minerals, I came prepared, with extra information in my binder, and won. Also, probably why we won was because the coach from Pembroke Hill wanted to talk to us about the event, and he ended up teaching us a lot of stuff, including identification of some cool specimens, such as Hourglass Selenite and Schorl. And guess what - those varieties were at the test the next day. Note to coaches: While doing this may help your team get a sportsmanship award, it is not worth missing out on nationals for that. I also had another event, Meteorology. I had this because the events Anatomy and Physiology and Meteorology conflicted, and two people doing both events together could only choose one event and not do the other. I chose to do Meteorology because I had a fondness for geology events, and also, the person that chose Meteorology was my friend. He said that I should only study for one portion of the rules, since I only had about a few weeks' time. And when states came, there was only one question about my topic. So we got 3rd, which was not as well as my partner wanted.

Missouri State Finals

Nationals was the final stretch. This was where I poured my most effort into. I added a lot of info into my Rocks and Minerals binder, practiced identification with kits and flashcards, and we got 13th place. We went into overdrive in Road Scholar, since our coach really wanted us to place, and in the end, we won. In Experimental Design, I fixed up all of my errors in writing, and we did many write-ups. We didn't place, but we got an 8th place, which was good enough for me to end off the season.

2017 National Finals

2018
This year I wanted to do more events. I signed up for 7, including my previous 3 events, Dynamic Planet, Solar System, Optics, and Thermodynamics. I signed up before the rules were released, so I didn't know about the Rocks/Dynamic conflict >:(. I signed up for the two physics events because I needed a time-waster, and thus did not make it for either of them.  In Solar System, our coach gave Quizlet tests.  I mean, Quizlet tests.  Most weren't even on terrestrial bodies, and some weren't even about the solar system!  Nevertheless, because of me not being prepared with the knowledge about stuff outside of the solar system, I did not make it.  So I was down to my original three events.

Regionals came, and I felt less than prepared. In Experimental Design, our group hadn't met and done an experiment before, even though we designated our portions. When we walked in, we were like "Screw it, we're not going to place." And...we won XD. I credit our win to the bad proctoring (lol there was literally a checklist in front of us) and the fact that other teams weren't that good. We finished everything except for Qualitative Observations in 30 minutes, and we had a group discussion on how to write it for the next 20 minutes :D. In Rocks and Minerals, I had a new partner, which would be hard, but at least he made his part of the binder so we won. And finally, in Road Scholar, we won, easily, with a pretty large margin. I had successfully defended my title in all three of my events.

Missouri Region 6 Finals

This was my 2nd time going to states. Last year, I had won all three of my main events, and I was hoping to accomplish the same feat I had last year. Ultimately, the event I was most worried about was Experimental Design. As it is with lab events, Experimental Design is a "swing" event, and it can go either way. So my team worked to get it to go they way that would take us to the gold. Our hard work paid off, and we won, again. In both Road Scholar and Rocks and Minerals, I felt no need to worry, as they were my strongest and favorite events, and we won both of them. I had spent a lot of effort on prepping me and my partner for Rocks, and my ultimate goal was that medal at nationals. Oh wait...we didn't go to nationals! This was true salt. Our school had won 14 out of 22 events (Thermodynamics was cancelled due to bad proctoring), placed 2nd in 3 events, 3rd in 2, and 5th in 1, and had 2 events that did not place. Our overall score was 70. If you do the math, our 20 events that medaled added up to 31 points!!! That means that our two events that did not medal, Roller Coaster and Write It Do It, got 39 points in total. And, of course, Pembroke Hill HAD to get just one point below us, resulting in us not going to nationals. Welp, there goes my hopeful nats medal(s). But the thing that had the most salt was that at nationals, Pembroke hill placed 8th in Rocks and Minerals, placing 3rd or 4th at states (I don't remember exactly). Trying not to be too assumptive, but we probably would've medaled in it. Thanks a lot, Pembroke Hill.

Missouri State Finals

Event Affinity
I have done (or at least attempted) a lot of events. Here is a complete listing.
 * Disease Detectives
 * Dynamic Planet/Glaciers
 * Dynamic Planet/Tectonics
 * Ecology
 * Experimental Design
 * Fossils
 * Game On
 * Meteorology/Severe Storms
 * Mission Possible B
 * Optics
 * Road Scholar
 * Rocks and Minerals
 * Scrambler
 * Solar System/Terrestrial Bodies
 * Thermodynamics
 * Write It Do It
 * Wright Stuff

Now, whether I liked them or not was another situation. This is a list of my top 5 favorite events. You might notice that most of them are Earth/Space Science related:
 * 1) Rocks and Minerals
 * 2) Experimental Design
 * 3) Dynamic Planet/Tectonics
 * 4) Road Scholar
 * 5) Dynamic Planet/Glaciers

Ongoing Wiki Projects
(to remind me)
 * Road Scholar Satellite Maps section
 * Missouri State Tournaments