Science Bowl tries to retool in effort to reach national tournament

A new season of the school’s Science Bowl kicked off with its first round of tryouts on Oct. 2.

Science Bowl captain Alex Li hopes the team will finally win Regionals and be able to participate in Nationals, as well as establish “strong Science Bowl program so that Saratoga will be just as strong in the future.”

The tryout process was discussed in an informational meeting on Sept. 28, and those interested were able to try the buzzer system.

On Oct. 2, potential team members took a written exam after school in chemistry teacher Kathy Nakamatsu’s room. The top four scorers from each grade and the next top 12 cumulative scores proceeded to two buzzing rounds that took place on Oct. 7 and 9.  

This year, Science Bowl will have A, B and C teams, with the A team guaranteed to compete at the prestigious Stanford Linear Accelerator Center’s (SLAC) National Accelerator Laboratory on Feb. 6, Li said.

The team will wait until second semester to finalize the Team A roster to “motivate people to study and improve their skills in their own free time,” Li said.

The B team has  five members and might be able to compete at SLAC, Li said, while team C is a “training team” for underclassmen and will have five to 10 students.

Junior Nicholas Sum, Science Club competition coordinator and member of last year’s B team, said that the team is hoping to improve with more structured practices.

“We should probably be studying more and working on buzzing skills, because we were too timid with the buzzing last year,” Sum said.

According to senior captain Jacky Lee, members are also

striving to balance out their knowledge in each subject.

“Our team is strong in math, physics and chemistry, but we’re lacking in biology, earth science and energy, so all three of the captains are taking AP [Biology] and AP [Environmental Science]  to strengthen ourselves in those subjects,” Lee said.