Interlake High School

Interlake High School is a Division C fierce national competitor for the 2014-2015 season from Washington State that has qualified for the State Tournament four consecutive times. The team was founded in 2010 by Gordon Sun and is currently in its fifth year. The school initially had only one team, but has grown to three teams that compete in the Northwest Regional. In the 2015 season, Interlake sent two teams to the Washington State tournament on April 18 at Highline College.

Leadership
Interlake High School has 1 coach and 7 officers. While all the officers perform various tasks in order to make sure the club is run effectively, each officer position also has a specific job, a system that has been in place since the end of the 2014 season. The officers are elected at the end of the season, usually during the last meeting of the school year. Build captain was initially a delegated position when it was created at the end of the 2014 season, but became integrated into the main officer team at the end of the 2015 season. The officers are voted on by popular vote of club members, and the new officer team chooses their own positions during their first officer meeting.

Officer Positions
President: Leads officer meetings and oversees all general club affairs.

Vice President: Helps the president in overseeing all general club affairs.

Secretary: Takes attendance, records meeting notes, manages logistics, like forms, transportation, ordering materials, etc.

Treasurer: Manages money, including fundraising and reimbursements to members that buy materials on behalf of the club.

Newcomer Liaison: Focuses on getting new members to join the club, especially freshmen. This officer also communicates more with new members throughout the year in order to help them succeed during their first year. This position is preferably filled by one of the younger officers in order to give underclassmen a less intimidating way to talk to the officers.

Two Build Captains: Buy materials and run errands for build events, organize build meetings, ensure builds are getting done.

Team Structure
Interlake High School has 3 teams. The teams follow an A team, B team, C team structure, with A team being the top team, followed by B, and C team. For the 2015 season, Interlake registered four teams (named Trenta, Venti, Grande, and Tall), but only three competed at the regional level.

Tryouts
The 2015 season is the first season that tryouts were held. Students tried out for specific sets of events that are predetermined by the officers. Each student chose which event set he or she wanted, and took one test to tryout for a 2-event set and two tests to tryout for a 3-event set. Build events were not included in these sets and were assigned after tryouts on a more subjective basis with past experience in mind. The tryout test scores were not the only factor that were be considered in team placement; other factors also came into play, such as experience in Science Olympiad as well as willingness to study or build ahead of time. However, the student with the best scores for an event set was generally placed on the top team, the student with the second best scores on second team, and so on. In future seasons, tryouts will likely only occur if a student wishes to challenge another student for a spot on the top team.

Summer/Day Camps
During the summer of 2014, members from Interlake High School started a summer day camp for students entering grades 5-9 in order to fundraise for the following seasons. The camps was organized and led entirely by several of the high school students in the club. Two sessions were held, each two weeks long. Each day was focused on one or two Science Olympiad events, with more involved build events like Mission Possible, which took up two days. The event-focused lessons were also interspersed with general science lectures covering topics like chemistry, kinematics, circuits, and biology.

The day camps continued in 2015 with a one week session over the Bellevue School District's Spring Break. The main focus of this camp was build events, including Bridge Building, Wright Stuff, Scrambler, It's About Time, Write It Do It, and Mission Possible.

The summer 2015 day camps will run for four weeks, each week focused on a different branch of science. There will be one week focused on biology, one week focused on chemistry, and two weeks focused on physics.

Invitational Tournament
Interlake High School hosted it inaugural Invitational Tournament on December 06, 2014. All events were run and 28 teams completed. The results were as follows: first place to Bothell High School, second place to Camas High School, and third place to Raisbeck Aviation High School.

Trivia
Interlake High School's rival schools for Science Olympiad are Bothell High School and Troy High School

Members of the Team
Gordon Sun - The honorable founder of Interlake Science Olympiad

bernard (2012-2015) - President (2013-2015), Build/Team Captain (2014-2015)

balsa (2012-2015) - Co-President (2013-2015), Entomology Expert (2013-2015)

watermydoing14 (2013-2016) - Build/Team Captain (2014-2015), President (2015-2016)

goldiny (2014-2016) - Build/Team Captain (2014-2015)

houdown (2013-2016) - Vice President (2014-2016)

FluffyBubbleFire (2013-2016) - Secretary (2014-2015)

lin_dugong (2013-2016) - Treasurer (2014-2015)

ethiopianbear (2014-2017) - Freshman Liaison (2014-2015)

raydioactive (2014-2017)