During the first week back after the break, Chris Pham, Scott Shaeffer, Kevin Kreulen, Sarah Curry and Luke Runyan, a few of the members of the Science Olympiad team, worked during Instructional Focus and after school to make final preparations for their first competition of the year.

The team, headed by Stephen Clark, who teaches AP Chemistry and AP and Honors Physics, will travel to Snellville tomorrow where they will compete against 45 schools from all over the state at the Brookwood Invitational beginning at 9 a.m. The three-hour event is followed by an award show.

Science Olympiad is a club that allows students to explore different scientific fields and then compete against each other through a variety of 23 building and academic events. Some of these include Forensics, Forestry, Water Quality, Circuit Lab, Dynamic Planet, Write-It-Do-It, Robot Arm, Designer Genes,Thermodynamics, Anatomy and Physiology, and Rocks and Minerals.

The students, who met as a team and received their assignments in November, started working on note sheets, creating resource sheets that can be used on tests, building and perfecting robots and other mechanisms, and studying for competition tests in earnest this past Monday.

“I don’t feel too prepared,” senior Sarah Curry said. “On a scale of one to 10, I feel like a three, but Saturday morning I’ll be at least a nine,” she said.

Despite feeling slightly unprepared, the team feels they will do well.

“I think we’re a pretty smart group of people,” said junior Stephanie Clark, who has been competing in Science Olympiad since third grade and happens to be the daughter of Dr. Clark.

Last year, the team placed fifth and this year senior Jeremiah Smith said he is confident the team will place within the top 10.

“We have a bunch of smart kids who enjoy what they’re doing,” Runyan said.

Members of the team view the invitational as more of a practice or warm-up for the regional and state competitions, which are later this semester, rather than as a serious competition.

“This is not to win. It is to see where we are,” Dr.Clark said. “If we finish dead last, who cares?”