ALBANY A pair of Albany High School science teams enjoyed tremendous success at competitions this year, furthering the local school systems academic reputation.

The 15-member Science Olympiad team from AHS won its regional competition in March, then finished fifth at the Northern California championships on April 1.

Also on April 1, a team of five students in the Biology Club finished second at the Cal Bioengineering Honor Society Bioengineering Competition.

This year we werent really expecting anything at all, said Emily Lu, a sophomore who is on the Science Olympiad team. When they announced first we were all crying, she said of winning the Bay Area Regional Science Olympiad (BARSO), the regional competition.

The Science Olympiad team is Lu, Alex Kireeff, Amal Kaduwela, Brandon Chen, Evan Zhong, Maria Fedyk, Ishaan Das, Jonathan Luo, Milo Kearney, Nathan Skinner, Philip Lee, Ruby Tang, Thomas Lee, William Li and Yunfan Zhong.

The team was advised by Albany High teacher Valerie Risk, as well as parent-coaches Ajith Kaduwela, Yishi Chen, Charles Lee and Annette Chan.

The competition appeals to the students, most of whom have been competing in Science Olympiad since they attended Albany Middle School.

This is definitely a team event but its a very interesting team event, said Phillip Lee, a junior who competes with his brother Thomas Lee, a freshman.

There are 23 events in a competition. They include build events, such as Robotic Arm, where competitors have to build a robot that can pick up stacks of pennies, flip them from heads to tails and stack them neatly on a target. Other events also have written tests.

Amal Kaduwela, a sophomore, competed in Robotic Arm, Hovercraft and Optics. The latter involved taking a laser light and using up to five mirrors to reflect that laser to an end point. You can turn on the laser one time and if you miss, you dont get a second chance.

Kaduwela said he and his partners can always get it right in practice but it has sometimes been a struggle in the competitions.

I think every tournament, except maybe one, we messed up the laser shot, he said. It just slightly missed a mirror. At the practice, wed hit it dead on. Every time we learned something new but there was something else that messed up the next time.

Lu competed in four events, including tower. In that competition, she and her teammates had to build a tower out of balsa wood that met certain specifications. It needed to support 15 kilograms but also be light of weight itself.

The Lee brothers competed in Micro Mission together. They each do other events with other teammates as well.

Phillip Lee said, The parents are like, Oh, you have two brothers. Dont they fight all the time? Thomas Lee dispelled that notion.

Its really cool working with my brother, he said. We dont usually fight.

The Biology Club team is made up of sophomore Wendy Liu and freshmen Jerry Min, Omar Ibrahim, Caleb Williams and Trevor Ryan. Maureen Wiser is their faculty adviser. The team finished second with their project, Utilizing Snails to Biodegrade PET Plastics by Cultivating Bacteria Inside Their Digestive Tract.

Lu said the success of the Science Olympiad is leading to more interest at school. She said about 50 kids have joined up at the middle school level and about 30 have joined at the high school.

Because its not just an individual thing, its a team thing, so more people are joining, she said. Thats promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) in Albany.

Excerpt from:
Albany High science teams find winning formula - East Bay Times