User:Willpan99

Willpan99 is a Science Olympiad competitor attending Ladue High School, Missouri. He is a rising sophomore and competed for Ladue Middle School in Division B in the 2015-2016, 2016-2017, and 2017-2018 seasons. He plans to compete in Science Olympiad for Ladue High School until his graduation in 2021.

Competition History
Willpan99 has participated in numerous competitions since 3rd grade, when he started competing in the state math competition program and in his chess school's tournaments. Taking 7th place overall in the state math competition in 4th grade motivated him to continue to find new subjects to compete in and to improve himself to become a much better competitor.

Luckily, entering middle school opened up many more opportunities for his competition career. He, along with some other friends, represented Crestview Middle School (a historically prominent Science Olympiad competitor, whose program is now defunct; however, it feeds into Marquette High School) in numerous math competitions such as continuing the state math competition program, MATHCOUNTS, and even the AMCs. However, there was always the one school that kept beating them at, well, pretty much everything: Ladue. No matter how hard they tried, they just could not beat those four people who stole the top spots at what seemed like every math competition in Missouri.

Alas, one day, Willpan99 felt like he needed a new group of friends; to him, he just didn't get enough attention from his current group. His parents had him apply to a couple of private schools: the prestigious John Burroughs and MICDS. Both of them rejected him, and where did he have to go now? He was now in the boundaries of Ladue Middle School, and on the first day at his new school, aspired to meet the people who always beat him. He met lots of other people there who also had prodigious talents, and it seemed like everyone was smarter than him. What did he do? He took all the numerous new opportunities that this school had to offer, and eventually rose up to the level of the competitors that he had wondered over in the past.

That's the story of how Willpan99 ended up in Science Olympiad. He now competes in most of the educational competitions offered that include but are not limited to: Science Olympiad, Science Bowl, math competitions, and swimming. In the future, Willpan99 also plans to become a competitor in some of the International Science Olympiads, piano, Quiz Bowl, and maybe even Speech and Debate.

Event Placings
All regional competitions took place in the St. Louis Region 6 Tournament at Lindenwood University (Main Campus), St. Charles. All state competitions took place in the Missouri State Tournament at Westminster College, Fulton.

2016 - 7th grade, Division B
Somehow, the only reason I made the main team was because of my exceptional performance in Road Scholar. I took on Air Trajectory (while sacrificing many Saturdays to test the machine), which also had only one 7th grader competing. Despite our poorer performance in regionals (didn't even hit the target) and state (better, but... not close), we used many, many hours between State and Nationals to test the machine. At Nationals, this effort paid off; my only, extreme regret is that we could have medaled, but I was being so rushed and bossy that we forgot to put the ball into the machine for the last shot.

2017 - 8th grade, Division B
My 13th place Road Scholar at 2016's national competition had motivated me to do better; my old partner and I had managed to finish the test (as our coach had doubted that we would), but we probably should have done better without the stupid mistakes that had brought me down from my competition career in 3rd grade. Therefore (as my partner described), we went into "overdrive"; this effort paid off.

I was also happy to be competing in Anatomy and Wright Stuff for state. The other person competing for the second spot in Anatomy, however, merely had a conflict at the state competition with another event, and again ousted me out of the national competition spot. My partner for Wright Stuff also had two planes that consistently flew longer than my own plane, so he got to choose a partner for Nationals. And Write It Do It? I was happy to make the event, but I was definitely not happy that my performance was... terrible.

2018 - 9th grade, Division B
Since I was a 9th grader this year, I knew I would have a large influence on the team. So, I competed for spots in 7 events (none of them conflicted!) and got a top 5 ranking in all of them. However, my abilities were still outmatched in most of them; I continued the events I had always dedicated myself to. My performance in Anatomy and Road Scholar were good, as usual, but I completely messed up the laser shoot in Optics and lost the tiebreaker in Write It Do It. I then withdrew myself, but that extra time wasn't enough to improve my ever-deteriorating performance in WIDI. At state, we lost the (not first, but now only) spot for Nationals by one point. This was devastating to the team, but I just told myself that I wouldn't do Write It Do It for the high school ever again, and that a loss was probably inevitable; everyone gets what they want at some point in time, even if it's the enemy.

After that devastating loss for both the middle and high school teams, next year for Ladue Science Olympiad would be: the year of the grind.

My Practice Tests
Road Scholar:
 * [[Media:TheLouisAndBarkExpeditionRoadScholarSampleTest.pdf|"The Louis and Bark Expedition" Test]] (medium)
 * "The Louis and Bark Expedition" Topographic and Highway Maps (PDF in .ZIP Archive via Google Drive)
 * [[Media:BetweenTwoSeasonsRoadScholarSampleTest.pdf|"Between Two Seasons" Test and Key]] (hard)
 * "Between Two Seasons" Topographic Maps (PDF in .ZIP Archive via Google Drive) (NOTE: Highway map not included)
 * [[Media:TheLastSeasonRoadScholarSampleTest.pdf|"The Last Season" Sequel Test and Key]] (very hard) (NOTE: Test has not been revised, key is incomplete, and some questions are unanswerable without the full Bryce Canyon NPS Map.)
 * "The Last Season" Topographic and NPS Maps (PDF in .ZIP Archive via Google Drive) (NOTE: Highway map not included)