Thursday

I have never liked getting up at 4:30 A.M. for a flight — and I probably never will — but in this case, the irritation was tempered by anticipation. At 5:50, only five minutes late, I stepped foot inside SeaTac. The rest went as you’d expect: we bought some Beecher’s and got on our flight to Dulles. On the plane, I allegedly studied some biology by watching House M.D., but all of us quickly descended into geometry dash madness (I claim we were studying math).

I hadn’t played the game in four years, and to my surprise, they added four new levels in that time! I had some catching up to do, especially since Emma L. ’27 was already making progress on the last one. But a foray into Geometry Dash wouldn’t have been complete without our resident geometry expert — Michael Y. ’24 — and the subsequent taunting of the poor senior. But hey, he did eventually finish Stereo Madness…on the flight back.

Once we landed, we joined a 200-meter-long line snaking its way to eleven buses, all shuttling 700 middle and high school kids (and their teachers) to the National Convention Center in Leesburg, VA. Once there, they herded us all into another line, and after registration, Vishnu M. ’26 had his make-or-break moment: the egg pull. Inside a jar, the organizers placed eggs with round-robin division names on them, and the captain had to choose one (with 8-9 teams per division). Thankfully, Vishnu chose right — which meant he picked anything but the Ames division, boasting 6 of the top 10 teams in the nation. At the end of the day, we visited the Air and Space Museum, playing a scuffed game of Charades along the way.

Friday

I swear I’ve never been a night owl, but these wake-up times were getting to me: I mean, come on, was 6:45 in the morning really necessary? Friday was science day, where we heard from fascinating speakers on a variety of AI-related topics, from imaging black holes to biomedical applications.

The issue was that 6:45 was 3:45 Pacific, so I might’ve almost nodded off a dozen times throughout all the speaker sessions, though I promise that I stayed awake as best I could. Thankfully, after a lunch break, we had two hours free — which I and most of the team spent napping.

Five o’clock brought forth upon this nation the division team challenge — which was an odd combination of earth science and, I kid you not, economics. Although we were a bit shaky on the first part — minus Vishnu, who spent his time identifying rock samples — we cooked on the second part, yapping our heads off on the economic benefits and detriments of having a mine nearby. 

Saturday

I got used to the early wake-up calls by Saturday — and today would prove to be quite a fun one as we would, for the first time that trip, set foot in Washington D.C. An hour-long bus ride later, we arrived at the Smithsonian Castle and started wandering.

After passing through the WWII memorial and a 1500-person strong yoga class, we made our way to the Washington Monument, took some “memorable” photos, and ventured to the Smithsonian, where we were accosted by none other than Jackson B. ’25 — which came as a surprise to everyone but me. While together, we caught up on the inner workings of SEGL, Lakeside, and the National Science Bowl — but most importantly, Jackson had some time to showcase his biology knowledge through bizarre questions on the pH of human blood (which he got correct). For anyone wondering, this is indeed because Jackson is a vampire.

We paid the gemstone and earth science section a visit so that Michael the Elder could visit some of the rocks that were around “back in his day,” and our teachers then insisted we visit an Art Museum to get a diversity of experiences. We grudgingly agreed.

After returning to the National Convention Center, we sat through the rules ceremony and practiced against the Minnesota team — because Vishnu and Michael, being as famous as they are, knew a couple members of their team.

Sunday (Competition Day)

Our motto, on competition day, was simply “speed and power!” (If anyone knows Jeremy Clarkson, you’ll know where that reference came from.) But we proved that we needed some warm-up to stick to it. Our round-robin division didn’t have too many well-known teams, and we breezed through the first seven rounds before succumbing to BASIS San Antonio in the last round-robin round. 

In each match, there are two halves of 10 minutes each, as well as a two-minute halftime where substitutions can occur. Each team may have four players in at a time and five players total. There are toss-ups, where verbal communication is prohibited and individuals buzz in to win four points for their time; each team may buzz in only once (between its four members) and you have five seconds after the question is read to answer. If a team gets a toss-up, they have 25 seconds to answer a bonus that is of the same category as the toss-up. All communication is allowed between team members during a bonus.

During the competition, there were several incredible interrupts — i.e. where you buzz and answer before the question has been read. Below are five highlights, where * denotes where one of us buzzed:

Q: Type I supernova can be diff (*)

A: Hydrogen

Explanation: The definition of Type I supernovae are supernovae that don’t display evidence of hydrogen (as opposed to Type II).

Q: Matt has 3 dark pants, 4 light pants, 5 dark pants, and 6 light pants. How many (*)

A: 39

Explanation: Assume it’s going to outfits of the same color, which gives us 39 — but it could’ve easily been outfits of opposite colors. 

Q: How many eighth roots of unity are there that aren’t fourth (*)

A: 4

Explanation: Assume that it’s the fourth root of 1 — then you get four (it ended up being fourth roots of -1 but the same answer applies).

Q: A 95% mixture of ethanol and water cannot (*)

A: Azeotrope

Explanation: Throughout distillation, to azeotrope means to maintain constant density and composition. This cannot happen for the mixture in the question.

Q: On a planet with the same density and twice (*)

A: 19.6

Explanation: Assume it’s asking for the acceleration due to gravity at the planet’s surface. Working it out, we find this is proportional to the radius of the planet. 

During double elimination, we became that comeback team. In the first round, we ended with a 108-32 run after being down by over thirty points at the half. The second round, though, was even sweeter: at one point, we were losing 0-54. All hope was lost. But then, we interrupted one question and violated the Conservation of Momentum. Questions upon questions went to us — with some lucky guesses along the way — and we ended 108-54. And boom! Quarterfinals. 

Given that the title of this article didn’t mention semifinals, you can probably guess what happened during the next match (our opponents managed third overall). The ice cream stand NSB specially brought in for the competitors closed shortly thereafter, though, so we did receive a bit of consolation prize.

Monday 

I swear, I am not taking a job in the Department of Energy — these people wake up way too early. In order to eat breakfast, pack up, and make the bus out of the convention center, we had to wake up at 5:45…unpleasant to say the least. Before leaving, though, Michael and I enjoyed a game of baseball where Yang the Baller struck me out on four pitches, but I did get a hit by pitch later.

By 9:00, they shoved everyone who didn’t make finals into George Washington University’s theater — so that we could watch both the Middle and High School finals (as well as one hour of keynote addresses because why not). In both divisions, the reigning champions, BASIS Bellevue (go Washington!) and Lexington High School, won.

And then the flight back. We arrived at the airport by 12:30 and it was only…five hours until our evening flight. So we ate some lunch, picked up some dinner, and discovered a new way to do science bowl: Skribblo! It turned out to be a whirlwind since some of us made some truly wacky “diagrams.” After two hours of that, we boarded the plane, took more naps, watched Michael finish Stereo Madness, and just like that, it was over. But before we parted ways, we made one promise to each other: next year, we win.