User:Aherthabey

Aherthabey is a graduate of the Science Olympiad team at Wayzata High School in Plymouth, Minnesota. He attended Wayzata High School from 2012-2016.

I joined the Science Olympiad team as a sophomore. I don't actually remember why I joined in the first place, but I definitely remember being overwhelmed by the number of events available. As a junior, I co-led Green Generation. The people in my event will remember my really sleepy presentations given on my iPad in the corner of the cafeteria. I apologize for that, but in my defense, Tuesday afternoons are not good times for me to be talking about environmental remediation. In my senior year, I was chosen as one of Wayzata's four captains, in addition to serving as event leader of GeoLogic Mapping. My most significant contribution to the team is my overhaul of the team website, as well as some pending team organizational changes. I'm hoping to get a real domain name for our site to increase publicity and so we can install a Moodle extension.

I hope that Wayzata can someday qualify for Nationals. I would also like to see Wayzata Science Olympians establish Division B teams at each of Wayzata's three feeder schools: Central, West, and East.

=Science Olympiad Philosophy= This has been repeatedly emphasized by Science Olympians past and present, but I feel the need to reiterate it here: the best way to get better at Science Olympiad is to work hard at it. Even if you get straight A's in all your science classes, the skillsets needed for Science Olympiad are so diverse and specific that it is proverbially true—practice makes perfect. This is especially pertinent for events like Dynamic Planet and Fossils, because Wayzata High School has no earth science courses except Astronomy. This also applies to events such as Write It/Do It and Experimental Design, in which the process is more important than the subjects tested. Honestly, I could keep going: building events are 90% trial and error and 10% design, etc. My point still stands: the more you study, build, and practice, the better and more satisfied you will be with your results.

Because practice is a fundamental part of Science Olympiad, I believe that teams that are able to replicate their success have found a way to motivate themselves to work hard and smart. It is very unlikely that all fifteen members will be as zealous as that poor soul that has made Science Olympiad their life, so it is the job of both coaches and captains to make sure that all team members are on task and working hard towards success. The scoring system that Science Olympiad implements demands that all events be strong, lest one event bring down the entire team's score. This is both reassuring and terrifying for the same reason: everyone's score (and therefore effort) matters.

Here are some relevant words from a top-tier Science Olympian, windu34.

"An hour a day is NOT enough effort. As a builder on my team which regularly attends nationals, it takes at least 3 hours a day and when 1 month to [competition] approaches, [I'd] up that to 5-6 hours. Builds require a lot of time to be done well because it is such a learning experience. My team has ZERO parent/coach helpers. EVERYTHING is done by students. For example, my team's [Robot Arm,] built by my partner and I, had ZERO help from any parents. We have won 1st at [the MIT Invitational], [Cypress Falls Invitational], Florida Regionals, and Florida States (we'll see about nationals). Our coach's policy is to let the students do EVERYTHING and it is one of the reasons we succeed. When we run into high level programing/mechanical/electrical problems, we have no one to ask, we do the research and hit the forums and try to narrow down where we went wrong."

"The best way to eliminate chances of things going wrong is to test it. Of course you [won't] be able to completely eliminate all [chance of error], but you can increase [the chances of success] in your favor. For example, the more you test a [Mission Possible build], the more likely a ball may happen to miss a switch... and [the more] you will be able to correct for it."

=Events=

Below is a list of events that I have the most experience with:


 * GeoLogic Mapping (Favorite event!)
 * Green Generation
 * Hydrogeology
 * Dynamic Planet/Glaciers
 * Anatomy and Physiology (Integumentary, Cardiovascular, Immune)

=Competition History=

Events

 * Water Quality
 * GeoLogic Mapping
 * Dynamic Planet/Glaciers Glossary note sheets
 * Designer Genes I really wanted to do this at one point, but was never placed in it :(

Events

 * Green Generation
 * GeoLogic Mapping
 * Anatomy and Physiology (Integumentary, Cardiovascular, Immune) I did immune and some cardio, and no integumentary because I'm a scrub.


 * Bridge Building (didn't do any building)

Events

 * GeoLogic Mapping
 * Green Generation
 * Hydrogeology


 * Disease Detectives (wtf was I doing)
 * Robot Arm (rip FlailBot 2k16)
 * Wright Stuff (User:Blai35 actually built the plane)
 * Air Trajectory (didn't do anything, actually. didn't even show up to the competition)
 * Electric Vehicle (didn't even have a build. event got dropped lol rip)

Medals
I wore a cow costume to help win the spirit award at the UW-RF Border Battle Invitational because my last name is pronounced "moo."

=How I Kill Time= I will be killing time at university next year—which institution has the honor of stealing four years from me will know so within the next few weeks. I am currently deciding between UMN Twin Cities, UCLA, and UC Berkeley (as well as UChicago and Northwestern if I get off their waitlists, which is unlikely). If you go to any of these schools and/or have helpful information regarding them and what they're like, please contact me by PM or otherwise! I'm considering a major in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering—otherwise, something in Environmental Studies or Geophysics sounds swell (hello Green Gen and GeoMaps lol). During my last year of high school, I will be playing quiz bowl with religious fervor (which I have done so for the past four years), trying to scrape decent grades in my classes despite my piss-poor effort levels, and ushering in the next era of Science Olympiad at Wayzata.