The Technical Term for Troy’s Win Is ‘Wow’

After months of intense preparation, all they could do Sunday morning was sleep late, eat and do some sightseeing.

It was the morning after Troy High School’s championship science team had taken first place in the National Science Olympiad Tournament in Atlanta, proving its members the smartest high school science students in the U.S.

“The one thing I can say is wow,” said Walid Gardezi, 18, the Fullerton team’s co-captain who helped steer it to victory over 51 other high school teams from around the country. “I feel wonderful about this.”

The weekend had begun inauspiciously enough with some of the students staying up past midnight on Friday, frantically scouring the city for a 5-inch Styrofoam cup.

Its purpose: to be part of a Rube Goldberg-type device in which a golf ball would take two minutes to move into the cup. They never found the right size cup, so instead they redesigned the machine at the last minute to operate with a larger cup.

“As far as we know, there isn’t a 5-inch Styrofoam cup in the whole state of Georgia,” said Kurt Wahl, a science teacher at the school and the team’s head coach.

Nonetheless, Wahl’s team won the competition, scoring 410 points out of a possible 575. The second place team, from a high school in Michigan, received 390 points.

“It was really exciting,” said team member Monika Roy, 16. “I can’t believe that something so good is happening to me.”

The annual event pits the brightest science students nationwide against each other in a series of 23 events testing their knowledge and skill in the areas of science and design.

Among the other tasks facing the students was to design a rocket out of a bottle that would shoot high and fly long; create a miniature gravity-powered car that could win a race without breaking an egg on its front end; and create a tower that weighed very little but could support 45 pounds.

During the daylong event, the students also were tested on their knowledge of biology, chemistry, nature and genetics.

“We have real talented students who are very competitive,” Wahl said of the 16-member team. “The students spent a long time studying because they enjoy what they’re studying, and they really wanted to win.”

To earn spots on the team, he said, the Orange County teenagers had to be selected from among 60 applicants on the basis of test scores in science. After the team members were selected, they won a regional competition and last month went on to be declared the state champion.

Each team member has spent an average of 300 hours preparing for the event since November, Wahl said.

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Once in Atlanta, though, there were a few hitches on the way to ultimate victory.

In addition to the Styrofoam cup search, the team’s bottle rocket stayed aloft for only 11 seconds because its parachute failed to open and one design experiment fell apart before it could be judged.

After staying up into the late hours to make last-minute preparations the night before the competition, some students were feeling pretty unsteady by morning.

“My friend was so tired that he fell asleep in the shower,” Gardezi said of a teammate.

For most of the students, though, the reward seemed well worth the effort.

“I feel absolutely wonderful,” Melanie Blunschi, 16, said when it was all over. “This is going to look great on a college application.”