Casady School is hosting a Science Olympiad “Mentoring Workshop” on Saturday, October 25, from 8:30 AM to 11:30 AM on the campus of Casady School in OKC. The goal of this workshop is to bring together experienced mentors and Science Olympians from across Oklahoma as a means of encouraging growth in the students and their events. For example, a medical doctor might meet with students preparing for the “Anatomy and Physiology” event, or a geography teacher might mentor students in the “Road Scholar” event.

We need mentors! We are looking for teachers, coaches, parents, meteorologists, paleontologists, geologists, physicists, petroleum engineers, etc., who are willing to volunteer their time. On the morning of Saturday, October 25, mentors will host one or two 75-minute sessions wherein they will work with groups of students to help them prepare for specific events.

There will be two sessions: Session 1 will run from 8:30-9:45 AM, followed by a 30-minute break, and Session 2 will follow from 10:15-11:30 AM.

Mentor’s Workshop Information sheet

Please sign up at the link below if you are able to mentor for one or both sessions:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11jEwRMCkCBmsMedt4aJnyN9tzzdEYd6V66DtzgIwiEA/viewform?usp=send_form

Additionally, please share this link and information with anyone you think might have the time and expertise to mentor the Science Olympiad students. The “Mentoring Workshop” will only be as good as we make it; the more mentors we have, the more beneficial it will be for everyone involved. The workshop is new to the Oklahoma Science Olympiad program, and we are looking forward to the unique learning opportunity it provides the students.

For more information, please contact Shannon Semet or Bob Melton.

The Science Olympiad Rules Manuals have arrived, the Coaches and Event Supervisor Training is just around the corner, and the first SO Invitational Tournament is in November. Are you ready?

1. If you have yet to do so, sign up for the Coaches and Event Supervisor Training September 20th at UCO.  Details are in an earlier post.  Know a STEM professional who would be a good Event Supervisor?  Have them sign up.  They can attend all or part of the training.  Lunch will be provided.  Have parents or colleagues who will serve as mentors or who will serve in a support role for a team?  Have them sign up!  go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q6SKSG8 to register.

2. Formalize your membership in the Oklahoma Science Olympiad.  If you join before September 20th, you will receive your 2015 Science Olympiad Rules manual at the Training. That’s a lot less difficult than waiting for the the manual to arrive in the mail.  Go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5CPPJMM to register your team.

Checks or  Purchase Orders should be made to the Putnam City Administrative Activity Fund, 5401 NW 40th, Oklahoma  City, OK  73122  The memo should read “Science Olympiad”.  Only Science Olympiad member teams can receive rule books or participate in tournaments.

Membership in the Science Olympiad is $100 per team.  $60 of that fee is for national membership, the remaining $40 stays in Oklahoma and helps fund the Oklahoma Science Olympiad.

This year, schools may enter as many teams in Division B or Division C as they wish to compete in invitational tournaments as well as the State Tournament.  However, EACH team must have a separate national/state membership.  If, for example, your school has 50 students who want to compete in the tournaments,  you can establish 3 separate teams and bring them to the competitions.  However, each team will have to have a separate paid National and State Science Olympiad membership ($100 X 3 = $300 total). Only teams with fully paid memberships will be allowed to participate in invitational tournaments or the state tournament. This is a requirement of the National Science Oympiad.

3.  The first Invitation Tournament will be held November 22 and will be hosted by Broken Arrow.  Invitational Tournaments, especially those held early in the year, usually have a reduced set of events.  Instead of the full complement of 23 events in each Division, it is more likely to be 12-13.  In addition, Invitational tournaments usually require teams to BYOES (Bring Your Own Event Supervisor)  We have a number of events, especially those requiring construction and timed courses, that require specialized equipment and timers.  But even those events will need supervisors and helpers and many other events will not be offered if each team cannot provide a supervisor.  The tournament directors will coordinate events and assign supervisors with participating teams as tournament registration takes place.

The complete schedule is this:

November 22 – Broken Arrow (location TBD)

January 10 – Putnam City West HS

February 7 – Norman Public Schools (location TBD)

March 7 – State Tournament, University of Central Oklahoma

Saturday, September 20th in Howell Hall at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q6SKSG8 to reserve your place in this training!

Trainers for this conference have set up a full schedule designed to get you set up and ready for the 2014-15 tournament season.

Each division will follow a separate strand which will review each of the 23 events in this year’s tournament catalog (see the attached schedule).  Each review will include an overview of the event rules and scoring procedures and a review of changes in the event from last year (when applicable).  During lunch (provided) we will conduct two panel discussions, one for event supervisors and another for coaches. The schedule has been arranged so that participants, particularly event supervisors, can follow a morning-only or afternoon-only schedule and still participate in the lunch and panel discussions.

THIS TRAINING IS FOR ALL VETERAN AND WELL AS NEW AND PROSPECTIVE EVENT SUPERVISORS AND COACHES.

The official 2015 Science Olympiad rule books for teams should be available when this training occurs.  Your check or Purchase Order for 2015 membership will reserve your copy for delivery at the training.

Enroll your team in the Oklahoma Science Olympiad at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5CPPJMM

Learn more about the Science Olympiad at https://www.oksciolympiad.org

Don’t miss this opportunity to bring one of the nation’s most exciting STEM programs to your students!  Join the nearly 7,000 teams in all 50 states that participate in Science Olympiad!

Contact Bob Melton for more information about the training conference and Science Olympiad

OK, what better way to spend a summer day but with kids and Bottle Rockets. (creative, exciting, and you might get wet!)

I spent this morning at our church’s VBS with 30 youth and adults building bottle rockets based on 500 ml soft drink bottles.  That in itself is worth a posting, but I thought you might want to take a look at an old favorite event making it’s return to Science Olympiad after resting for a few years.  Last week at the Science Olympiad Summer Institute in Phoenix, we saw the draft rules for Bottle Rocket B.  As usual, the design parameters are a little different than the last time Bottle Rockets were in Division B, so last night I built a rocket  using the draft rules so I could test it at today’s launch.

This rocket features a long nosepiece made from a florescent light dust tube capped with a ping pong ball.  The nosepiece is taped to the neck and spout from another bottle that has itself been inverted and taped to the base of the bottle that serves as the pressure chamber for the rocket.  At the Summer Institute I saw an example that featured fins made from paper towel tubes, so I used three, tapering their leading and trailing edges and crushing their diameter so their cross-section was an oval, rather than a circle.  Remember, this is just an example and the constructions rules are still draft and may change between now and the publication of the 2015 rules manual.

But watch this cell phone movie footage and see if this doesn’t “wet” your appetite for Science Olympiad!

The annual training conference for Oklahoma Science Olympiad Coaches and Event Supervisors will take place Saturday, September 20 in Howell Hall on the campus of the University of Central Oklahoma

Coaches and Assistant Coaches of Division B and Division C Oklahoma Science Olympiad teams are encouraged to attend the full day of training.  This will be your earliest opportunity to read and learn the details of this year’s competition events.  Schools that have joined the Oklahoma Science Olympiad by September 20th will receive their official 2015 rules manuals at the door.  Coaches will be able to review all 23 events in each division as well as pick up coaching tips, ask questions, and also learn how to form a science olympiad team and get them ready for competition.

Veteran and new Event Supervisors will also receive orientation to this year’s events as well as information on scoring and evaluating team performance.  We have designed the schedule in such a way as to allow event supervisors the option of only attending a portion of the day, but ALL event supervisors should plan to attend lunch, which features a panel discussion about procedures and responsibilities of supervisors.

The training is FREE, but all participants must pre-register HERE.

Questions?  Contact Bob

OK, July has arrived and with it, the new fiscal year and new budgets!  Time to get your Purchase Order ready to join the Oklahoma Science Olympiad for the 2014-15 tournament season.  It’s going to be an exciting season as evidenced by these pictures from the 2014 Science Olympiad National Summer Institute last week in Phoenix.

An example of a launcher for Air Trajectory, a new B and C event.

Yes, it’s the carriage for a Scrambler vehicle. Notice the wheels on the left. That’s right, they are steerable so the car can travel a curved path to the target!

Another type of launcher design for Air Trajectory (foreground) with an example of a 2015 Bridge in the background.

Coach and Event Supervisor training is Saturday, September 20th in Howell Hall at the University of Central Oklahoma.  Participants will review the rules and specifications for each of the 23 Division B (middle school) or the 23 Division C (high school) events.  In addition, we will have a panel for Event Supervisors and one for Coaches so you can find out all you need to know to get prepared for the upcoming Science Olympiad invitational tournament season.  We’ll have registration forms for the training posted soon on this website and on the Science Olympiad Basecamp as well.

You can also begin the process to join Science Olympiad.  Enrollment forms will be posted later this week, but you can begin the Purchase Order process now.  Purchase Orders should be made to the Putnam City Administrative Activity Fund, 5401 NW 40th, Oklahoma  City, OK  73122  The memo should read “Science Olympiad”.  Only Science Olympiad members can receive rule books, which normally arrive in mid-September.

Membership in the Science Olympiad is $100 per team.  $60 of that fee is for national membership, the remaining $40 stays on Oklahoma and helps fund the Oklahoma Science Olympiad.

This year, schools may enter as many teams as they wish to compete in invitational tournaments as well as the State Tournament.  However, EACH team must have a separate national and state membership.  If, for example, your school has 50 students who want to compete in the tournaments,  you can establish 3 separate teams and bring them to the competitions.  However, each team will have to have a separate paid National and State Science Olympiad membership ($100 X 3 = $300 total). Only teams with fully paid memberships will be allowed to participate in invitational tournaments or the state tournament. This is a requirement of the National Science Oympiad.

Watch this space, much more information will be posted on this website soon.

Questions?  Contact Bob

Ready to order your State Tournament T-Shirt?

Once again, we’ve joined forces with Justin Lawrence at the Oklahoma Shirt Company to design and print the official T-shirt of the Oklahoma Science Olympiad State Tournament.

Pre-Order for the 2014 Science Olympiad Finals shirt ends Monday, Feb 24th.

Shirts are blue with white graphics (so they will stand out!) and will be available for pickup on March 1st at the State Tournament.

You can order individual shirts for $12 each through the Oklahoma Shirt Company website at: http://oklahomashirtcompany.com/collections/scienceolympiad