Two Harker teams claimed top spots in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Regional High School Science Bowl, held Feb. 6. Team One – made up of juniors David Dai, Harsh Deep, Rishab Parthasarathy and William Zhao, and sophomore Jeremy Ko – placed second overall, and Team Two – seniors Michael Eng and Russell Yang, sophomore Rohan Bhowmik, and freshmen Gautam Bhooma and Nicholas Wei – placed in the top eight, the only second team to get that far in the tournament.
This competition, usually held at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, took place virtually this year. Each team was placed in a Zoom room and tasked with answering 18 questions, with each team playing three rounds at the start and the top 24 teams advancing to the elimination rounds.
In April, eighth graders David Dai, Harsh Deep, Shounak Ghosh, Rishab Parthasarathy and William Zhao received certificates of commendation from Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, who represents California’s 18th Congressional District. Eshoo graciously issued the certificates to congratulate the students on reaching the finals of the National Science Bowl, which took place April 26-30 in Washington, D.C. The team reached the final double-elimination bracket after winning a tough round robin, where in one match it scored an unusually high 204.
“The scoring judge even said that they do not see scores so high in the national competition and offered to give us the score sheet as a souvenir,” said middle school mathematics chair Vandana Kadam, who accompanied the team to the event. Harker received $1,000 for the team’s success in the round robin portion of the event.
Two teams of Harker students performed admirably at this past weekend’s Middle School Science Bowl regional competition. The first team, consisting of eighth graders David Dai, Harsh Deep, Shounak Ghosh, Rishab Parthasarathy and William Zhao, went undefeated throughout the competition and emerged as the winner, earning a trip to Washington, D.C., for the national finals. Team two, made up of seventh graders Rohan Bhowmik and Brian Chen, and eighth graders Mark Hu, Kailash Ranganathan and Aditya Tagore, advanced to the double elimination round after going 5-0 in the round robin portion of the event.
Both teams were coached by upper school students Leon Lu, Kaushik Shivakumar and Alexander Young, all grade 11; and sophomores Emily Liu and Kyle Li, all of whom participated in the Science Bowl as middle school students. With this victory and the upper school team’s previous regional win, Harker will send two teams to the Science Bowl national finals for the first time in Harker history!
Last weekend, Harker’s upper school National Science Bowl team A qualified for the national finals after going undefeated in the regional competition at Stanford’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The team comprises seniors Swapnil Garg, Rajiv Movva, Derek Yen and Shaya Zarkesh, and sophomore Emily Liu, all coached by Gary Blickenstaff. This marks the second straight year Harker has qualified for the national finals.
Utilizing a game show format with a buzzer system, the National Science Bowl tests student knowledge on a variety of topics, including biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics. The competition was established in 1991 by the United States Department of Energy with the goal of “making math and science fun for students to encourage them to pursue studies and careers in math and science,” according to the NSB website.
This year’s national finals are set to take place April 26-30 in Washington, D.C.
Update, Feb. 14: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s Michael Ross recently posted a recap of the Feb. 3 competition that includes more details about the event, such as the app created by a Stanford Online High School student that was of great use to competitors that weekend.