Some of the school’s most talented science students will compete at the Santa Clara County Regional Science Bowl on Feb. 8 where only the winning team will qualify for the National Tournament in April.
Science Bowl is a “Jeopardy!”-style competition where teams compete to answer Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science and math questions as fast as possible by buzzing in before the competition and answering correctly.
Honors Chemistry teacher Kathy Nakamatsu had hosted practices roughly once a week in Room 1011.
As the competition date grows closer, practices have been increased from once to twice a week. Two teams of five members are rigorously preparing, going through various practice questions, with some members focusing on specialized topics.
Team A, the top one, consists of senior Skyler Mao (specializing as an all-rounder), junior Max Rombakh (specializing in physics and astronomy), junior Alex Ge (specializing in chemistry), junior Warren Chee (specializing in astronomy) and junior Ethan Pan (specializing in biology).
Team B consists of junior Quinn Gifford (specializing in chemistry), junior Arjun Krish (specializing in biology), sophomore Seabert Mao (specializing in math), freshman Yuenching Shao (specializing in physics) and freshman Edward Chee (specializing in biology).
Although there are five members on each team, only four participate in buzzing at a time, with the fifth one standing as an alternate. Typically, each team consists of diverse members who specialize in different subjects so they can come together as a stronger whole and answer all types of questions. However, well-rounded members such as Skyler Mao are also vital to fill in gaps and foster good communication among team members.
On Dec. 3, the Science Bowl team participated in the Berkley Science Bowl competition where Team A placed third. Going to smaller competitions helps with preparation for larger competitions such as regionals.
“It gives you a chance to practice team communication in a real setting,” Gifford said. “Especially because it’s really important to keep a good mental game during Science Bowl. You have to be able to balance making predictions about the questions and being able to buzz in early.”
Another takeaway was being able to work out their team dynamic better and knowing which combination of players are optimal at certain times. With the new information, the teams say they have had more effective practices and carried over their experience to other competitions. Leading up to the Regional tournament, the team members are also sharpening their subject knowledge through individual study.
There are two ways members tend to study. The first is renting college textbooks and reading through it to attain as much information as possible. The second way is to just read old practice problem sets that were used at previous competitions. There are certain patterns that appear in categories which are important to study.
The teams have been preparing by running through practice problems and doing mock rounds. With speed being such an important factor in Science Bowl, the increased practices can help members gain more confidence when pressing the buzzer and practice their reaction time. However, accuracy is just as important as speed when it comes to scoring highly.
Rombakh said, “Right now we’re specifically focusing on getting people brushed up on Earth science and astronomy because those are also sciences that are tested on in Regionals and the ones we have been historically less prepared for.”.
Additionally, the Santa Clara region is known for being one of the most difficult regions to compete in due to the large population of highly competitive private and public schools such as Mission San Jose and Lynbrook.
The teams have been reviewing past competition questions. With so much effort being put into preparing, the hope of everyone is to take home gold.
“We would love to make Nationals again. We did it in 2023, but really that’s like the dream,” Nakamatsu said. “But mostly I want them to have fun and do their best, and if we make playoffs, that’s great.”
