Brain vs Brain @ Oak Knoll

Cheers and chants echoed throughout the playgrounds and classrooms at  in Menlo Park as students rooted on their classmates in the games of the Science Olympiad competition. 

On Tuesday, teams comprised of fourth grade students matched up against their fifth grade counterparts in a series of science-based games that enabled students to apply the concepts they learned in class to real-world scenarios. 

Some students designed paper airplanes and attempted to shoot them through hula hoops from varying distances, while others built towers out of straws, tape and paper clips. Other teams attempted to build boats of clay that could stay afloat in water while bearing the weight of holding metal washers. 

The competitions taught students lessons in aerodynamics, weight distribution, engineering and construction techniques, as well as the importance of working together as a team, said Susan Sanchez, a fifth grade  at . 

And the enthusiasm that students showed while completing the events indicated that they enjoyed learning science in a unique way. 

"It's quite the exciting day for the kids," said Sanchez. "They love it."

Fifth grader Erick Hagstrom's excitement was palpable, as his team constructed a massive tower of straws that spiraled upwards from a wide base to a skinny, single straw needle top. It was 225 centimeters tall. Hagstrom, wearing a yellow shirt to represent his team's color, said that his team's design was inspired by the way trees grew from a wide root system and trunk into becoming tall and skinny.

They had to stop building the tower when they couldn't reach the top of it, even standing on a chair. 

Sanchez said that students received no classroom training on how to excel in the Science Olympiad games prior to the event taking place; all successful methods were conceived organically between teammates. 

Fifth grader Joey Dahlkemper brainstormed with his teammates about boat designs, with the goal of making something that would hold as many small metal washers as possible without sinking. He and his teammates, dressed in red, molded a variety of different structures and dropped them in water before carefully placing each piece of metal in them to ensure that unequal weight distribution would not sink their ship. 

The importance of trial and error proved paramount. The team ran back to the drawing board after each unsuccessful attempt at creating a design able to hold 41 washers, which was the high water mark for the day. 

And though Dahlkemper and his team struggled to overcome leaks in their boat designs, he said he still enjoyed the experience. 

"This is fun because you get to learn about science," he said. 

That sentiment was shared by fifth grader Max Colowick, who spiritedly supported his team the Mellow Yellow Unicorns by sporting a yellow shirt with matching face paint. 

"This is really fun because you get to learn stuff," said Colowick. 

And fifth grader Matt Bortolazzo said that not only did he learn science lessons in a different way during the olympiad, he also learned the value of working well with his classmates. 

Bortolazzo said that his team's success hinged on working together. 

"Teamwork brings winning," said Bortolazzo.