Yeah well that happened. Time to write about it while procrastinating on 4 school hw assignments, 3 extracurricular homeworks, and much more!and also because this blog is so ded
Opening Ceremony:
The tournament was held at wolfpack’s favorite school, NC State!(Kinda hinted by his username but whatever) Walking into Reynolds Coliseum, I dapped up the NC State mascot before entering the MASSIVE place. In the opening ceremony, we were squished right in front of one of the best(if not the best) high school when it came to NC Science Olympiad, Enloe. Right behind us was arguably the best NC Middle School Science Olympiad team, Piedmont Open IB Middle(it’s only because the children get ABSOLUTELY CARRIED(HARDER THAN I DID) BY THEIR PARENTS BRUHHHH). I knew a lot of the Enloe team, so I was watching one dude play Clash Royale while we were waiting for the opening ceremony to start. There was also this one girl on Enloe’s team, PotatoMathster who I knew from Elementary School but she didn’t recognize me because “I looked very different than I did in fifth grade.” Anyhow, our school shifted our focus from Enloe to Piedmont and we started trolling this one guy who got really frustrated with us(I don’t remember the details). We did end up getting free ice cream from Howling Cow as a little treat for making states(lol I got carried into States) so our hands were kinda sticky because the people ran out of spoons so we used the lid of the ice cream cups(it’s kinda hard to explain but yeah whatever).
As the ceremony started, our team came out of the sides first, displaying the plastic banner that none of us knew existed(there were nine people that attended, but there’s actually 18 on the team). It was really cool and some of the middle schools and most of the high schools overdid their stuff. For example, Piedmont walked in with a giant pirate(their mascot) and there were other people dressed up as their mascot. Enloe ended up having some paper/wooden board that just said “Enloe High School. #Legendary,” which we obviously laughed at because our sense of humor is absolutely messed up.
After the little “Celebration of Champions,” as they called it, awards were given away. They were for the most helpful volunteers, best coach, etc. There was one dude who I would later greatly dislike(you’ll see) and I kinda zoned out for the rest of the awards because my friend and I were trying to land some bottle flips and stuff.
Finally, a guest speaker came. He did some CRAZY stuff using scientific techniques such as refraction, psychology, etc. to put on an insane magic show that I LOVED. His company is called Impossible Science, a link to a youtube video that they made is here. I really enjoyed the whole show and it was mindblowing as Jason Latimer, the magician, tried to get us to think and wonder(which he said would result in amazing questions being answered). I loved it.
The opening ceremony came to a close, and the next day, we would be competing against each other.

Event 1: Mission Possible
This was supposedly the hardest event. I hated it. Remember that guy who I said I’d greatly dislike later on? Yeah, this is him. He’s the only guy who loves this.
Previously, I had arrived at 7, lounged around for a solid 3.5 hours on an air hammock that one of my coaches had won during the opening ceremony(which would later become mine because I was “emotionally connected to it”), then proceeded to go to my first event at around 11. My partner and I went to Carmichael Gym #9, which was really big and huge and yeah. We tested a couple things during the 30 minute setup time, then proceeded to explain to the judge, Mr. Award-Winner-That-I-Don’t-Like, how our device worked. We had originally intended to do 8 scorable actions, but because HALF OF THEM DIDN’T FOLLOW THE DANG RULES, WE ONLY GOT 200 POINTS INSTEAD OF 400. BRUH. We ended up needing to do the maximum number of touches, 3, and scored a measly 400 points after deductions, penalties, and whatever. The good thing is that Mr. Mission-Guy told us how to fix our mistakes and so that’ll come in clutch. Another horrible thing is that OUR END ACTION FAILED(well we didn’t expect it to work anyways, but that’s past the point.). THAT’S 250 POINTS WE LOST! Whatever, this was the event I was most worried about. I ended up getting 13th place, which isn’t too bad, but I didn’t get a medal because not top 10

Event 2: Sounds of Music
This was the event I was most confident in because my partner, serenaz26(oops sorry for name reveal ig) and I are both musicians and we knew some decent stuff about music theory. Our proctor was so chill and when we forgot our calculators, he said we could just use our phones because he “would be surprised if we managed to cheat on the test.” My partner and I ended up being the loudest team(rip the other team that was taking the test while we were) because we were constantly getting mad at each other(more jokingly than not.) For example, the answer was either higher or lower and somehow my partner got frequency? LMAO HOW ARE YOU THIS BAD AT READINGGGGG. My partner left halfway through the test, which is my reason why we got 4th, and our instrument wasn’t really in tune(which isn’t good, for reference). I wasn’t too too mad at our placement, though I was pretty unhappy with it.

Event 3: Electric Wright Stuff
My partner absolutely carries me in this event because I can’t touch the plane(I broke the wing once oops). I ended up finishing the design log Friday night because I completely forgot about it oops. Anyhow, we ended up starting everything and our first trim flight went pretty well, with a decent 43-ish seconds. The horrid thing was the AC system was pushing fast, cold air onto our planes so our planes would completely die once they reached a specific part of the gym. We spent our two official test flights trying to work around it, but the plane kept on almost hitting objects and it was scary. I ended up getting 3rd in this event, which made me SUPER happy.

Closing Ceremony
This was a BLAST(except for one thing which you’ll see later). In the beginning, we ended up setting up our area and so I put my air hammock down. THEN ALL MY FRIENDS THOUGHT IT WOULD BE FUNNY TO SIT ON THE DANG THING AND EXCEED THE 500 LBS WEIGHT LIMIT so I had to deflate the thing twice, making their booty hit the ground twice within the matter of seconds(which was hilarious, my friend caught a video every time and we still laugh over the matter). The same friend who videotaped the deflation sat with me for the rest of the closing ceremony. NC State started giving away little wolfpack stuffed animals, which I HOPPED OVER FIVE PEOPLE, PULLED DOWN THE DANG THING WITH 3 OTHER HANDS GRABBED ONTO IT, THEN CLAIMED. Anyhow, onto the awards. This was basically how every event went as they called out placements. In 10th place, *inserts random team*: we would start telling each other “yooo top 9 lessgooooo”. In 9th place, *inserts random team*: “yoo top 8”, the chain went on until we either realized we didn’t place or our team was called xDDDD
When the final team rankings were called, our whole team stood up. brianzjk told me we had a good shot at winning this year, but I didn’t believe him because I didn’t wanna jinx it. In 10th place, “blahblahblah”. YAYYY TOP 9. The same thing that happened with the medal calling continued until “in third place, the dreaded third place… in third place…”(Note: THE DANG ANNOUNCER TOOK A SOLID TWENTY SECONDS TO SAY ALL OF THIS) “with 220 points…” we waited… “Piedmont IB Middle School!” Our school cheered louder than Piedmont when this happened because 1)We weren’t third place 2) We were going to Nationals and 3) We had finally beaten Piedmont. Second place was some random team from Wilmington, and we ended up winning(I have a recording of me running(though it was taken in selfie mode to like you can’t see any noticeable difference and you can only hear my team yelling LESSGOOO. Two of my friends and I stole some boba tea from Enloe(which is justified as I asked brianzjk, to which he responded “go ask someone else”, and when we did, she said “sure go ahead”). I had so much fun there(and I forgot the chair that I brought but whatever I was too excited to notice).


Man states was so fun. If only Caltech didn’t make it virtual because of COVID -_- (I’m still kinda ticked off about that). See ya’ll soon whenever the next interesting thing in my life happens ig. Ooh yeah I ended up going to the NC State Gym and using one machine for ten seconds, which was absolutely amazing. The gym has all the machines, barbells, dumbbells, weights, etc. that you could ever want. I also found the pool, which I didn’t go in due to time limitations. Can we get one comment?


Edit: So close to 1500 :thonk: