At the beginning of April, the CHS Science Olympiad Team went to State Science Olympiad and earned 10th place out of twenty-two schools. Two juniors, Lauren Yarosz and Taryn Wellensiek, placed 3rd place in the Bungee Drop event.
The Bungee Drop is a physics-based event where the participants are given a weight and height that they do not know until the day of the event. The goal of the event is to drop the weight as close to the ground as possible, without it ever actually touching. Depending on how close you get, you could earn a bonus as well.
Considering that the students go into this event without knowing what the weight or height they have to work with is, it can be difficult to prepare.
“Just getting enough measurements in time, because there is a way to do it with equations, but it’s not always best. It’s easier for us to just get enough measurements and find averages to figure out what we need to do for whatever height and mass they give us at the competitions,” Yarosz said when asked about her preparation for the event.
She went on to explain that they do tests after school to get as much data as possible. They use this to guesstimate what the best length of bungee will be to get it as close to the ground as possible.
Although at the regional competition, they decided to try a different method, but realized that it may not have been the best idea, especially with the competition being different from what they were used to.
“At regionals, the setup was a bit more confusing because they had a weird drop height. And we weren’t exactly prepared for that day, we were trying to do something different that we shouldn’t have done because we were doing fine,” explained Yarosz.
What they were trying to do was change their strategy of guesstimating to an equation that they had received from Mr. Hennigar.
“But with it we tried using it for regionals, and we ended up getting 7th, but then for state and every other competition we just guesstimated from all the previous tests we’d done, and we ended up getting 3rd in state with our guesstimates from all the different test drops we had done,” explained Taryn Wellensiek.
Though the equation did not work well for them, it could work well for others, or if they had more time with it. They had more practice with using the guesstimation method, meaning that they were more comfortable with it and scored better with it.
Using the guesstimation process means that they needed to have a lot of data, which results in a lot of work. To split up the work process, the two had to figure out how to best utilize themselves in the event.
“What we did was most of the time we would have one of us up at the top of the stairs, and that person would measure out the bungee and drop it and remember how much they measured out, while the other person would be at the bottom and that person would be in charge of recording the bungee as it dropped in slo-mo so we could more clearly see where it lands, and they would be in charge of recording everything,” Wellensiek explained.
This way of splitting up the work went well for them, as they were both able to look at the data in different ways and use this to earn the score that they did, of third place. When asked how they felt when they earned this, both exclaimed that they were very happy about it, but also surprised. At this competition, they were going against larger schools, which normally place high in all the rounds. Wellensiek also said that it did not go as well as they were hoping in the first round, but in the second round, it went way better, and they had earned the bonus. Overall, both were very happy with the score that they earned.
Since they both are juniors, they have one more year to compete, but have left advice for those who are interested in joining.
“Get as many measurements as quickly as possible,” both girls echoed, “find a way that works for you. For us, just doing a bunch of test drops, figuring out different heights, distances, and weights that worked best, but for someone else, they might find it easiest, and get the best results from the calculations.”
