CARMEL VALLEYCARMEL VALLEY — Last week’s regional competition of the National Science Bowl was a breeze for students from Carmel Valley Middle School.
Fifteen students from the school formed three teams and swept the top three spots of the Central California title of the National Science Bowl competition, held near San Luis Obispo.
How smart is Carmel Valley’s first-place team? Each of its five — all eighth graders — has only received A’s. Ever.
As the regional winner, the team will advance to the National Science Bowl this spring in Washington D.C. and compete against 67 teams from around the United States who have won regional competitions, said Jan Tyler, a coordinator for the National Science Bowl championship.
Fourteen-year-old Allen Huang, the self-proclaimed spokesman for the Carmel Valley team, said he eventually plans to become a research scientist in the field of chemistry. He’s the only one of the group — which includes Caroline Bao, 14; Andy Zhu, 13; Jerry Qu., 14; and, Wesley Zhang, 12 — who has already settled on a career path.
Carmel Valley is the only San Diego County school advancing to the national finals, Tyler said. At the high school level, students from Torrey Pines High and the Julian Charter School competed in a regional event in January in Livermore, but failed to advance.
Torrey Pines went to the nationals last year, but did not win.
As regional winners, the Carmel Valley team receives an expense-paid trip to the national contest, which will be held April 30 to May 4.
The team of five has been running drills on questions for four- to five hours a week, but plans to step it up until the National Science Bowl. They’ve been meeting at each other’s homes, or after school in the library, to go over questions that they pulled from the bowl’s website.
If they win, they’ll receive $1,000 for their schools’ science departments. Last year’s winning team also won an all-expenses-paid science trip to Alaska. This year’s trip hasn’t yet been revealed.
The regional science bowl for middle and high schools is organized by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories, the government’s main research arm for nuclear weapons research.
The 2015 competition marks the 25th science bowl, which the Energy Department launched in 1990 to interest youth in pursuing careers in science and math. In 1991, some 500 high school students vied to become the first bowl champions. Today, the science bowl draws more than 14,000 middle- and high-school competitors.
In the past, the event has attracted motivational keynote speeches, including First Lady Michelle Obama, U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, and his predecessor Steven Chu. This year’s keynote speaker is Doug Roble, who took his math and engineering know-how to Hollywood.
Oscar-winner Roble earned a doctorate in computer science at Ohio State University and has made numerous important contributions to the film industry by improving movie special effects, including a fluid simulation system that allowed moviemakers to create surging water effects in “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” and “The Day After Tomorrow.
The other two teams from Carmel Valley Middle School, which came in second and third in the regional competition, don’t get to compete in Washington. They include: Alisha Chakraborty, Eamon Aalipour, Andrew Feng, Ruchi Agashe, Amrita Moturi, Amrita Vetticaden, Helen Cho, John Finkelman, Alina Ho and Ethan Wang.
