By Ian Hugo – Sports Editor

The Jonathan Law Science Club recently took part in the Yale Undergraduate Science Olympiad on Saturday, January 30.

Law travelled to Yale to participate in the competition which pitted students against other schools in a variety of events meant to test their scientific ability.

“It was a good experience and we learned a lot from how the other schools performed,” senior James Mercaldo said.

Events were broken down into two categories – building and testing – which the students sign up for in partners and participate in.

Building events consisted of students constructing something (such as a robotic arm) and demonstrating its proficiency performing a task against students from other schools.

The testing events required unique skill sets and knowledge from the teams in order to accomplish a goal.

Law’s full team consists of 30 students and two faculty advisors, Ms. Turcotte and Mr. Stanton, and was split into two teams for the event, the A team and the B team, which is the first time Law’s had enough members for a B team since its induction four years ago.

This large influx of new members came after senior Emma Shea took over as president.

Under Shea’s leadership, the club has been holding members accountable for their events: back in December, members from each event presented what they had been working on and what they still had to finish to make sure members weren’t waiting until the last minute to finish their projects.

“This year we have a lot of smart kids who enjoy delving into the different sciences,” Shea said. “At the Yale Olympiad in January, we saw different ways we could improve our projects and scores.”

At the end of the day and the conclusion of the event, events were given individual scores and the top three partners from each event were given awards as well as the top three schools overall.

The event kicked off at 8:30 a.m. after all students had finished impounding their devices. There were six time slots, each an hour long, spaced throughout the day in which students would participate in three out of the six.

When students had free time, they spent it with the team, exploring Yale and enjoying a warm hot chocolate.

The Yale event was a practice event for the UConn Science Olympiad, which is held on April 2 at UConn and is hosted by the official Science Olympiad organization.

“As a team, we have a lot of potential for success at UConn and I hope we can come together to do our best and represent our school,” Shea said.