Carolina Science Olympiad. At UNC!!! GO HEELS!!! SKO EAGS!!!

So I arrived at Home Base(Gardner Hall), which just so happened to be really far away from Rams Head(the location of my first event). My partner was at the impound site waiting for me because we still hadn’t finished our build(we’d only started a week ago), so I got my wristband and bolted for Rams Head(which was more than half a mile away kadlhgilewfjwe my sprinting, non-xc, absolute-garbage-at-running body cannot take that). Just as luck would have it, I got a cramp maybe 10 seconds in. My partner and I ended up not impounding because the entire time before our event, we were working on our launching system and trying to get it to work, sooo guess who got tiered stupidly crazy for that! Oh yeah HZ decided to follow me because she was really bored and then she got mad at me when I told her I’d be sprinting over to Rams Head(she’s the one that wanted to go with me… not my fault…)

So apparently Bluedevils also did Scrambler, and he got second, so congrats to him! Anyhow, the ES lowkey scared me because one girl looked like she was going to beat me up/wanted us to leave ASAP and the other dude was kinda buff and had a mean voice soooooo yeah I freaked.

Our first run went perfectly, with the exception that I forgot to adjust the brakes so it only went ¼ of the distance that it could’ve whoops. However, I FORGOT TO TELL THE ES THAT WE WERE ABOUT TO TEST SO IT DIDNT COUNT!!!

Soo now we have our second run…
Yeah basically what happened was our launching system failed so the vehicle shot out of bounds REALLY fast, resulting in a huge tier, and adding with the fact that our launcher was too large(I had told my partner that it was too big but she insisted that scioly.org said it was 1 m by 1m and I eventually just gave up :sob: )

At that point, it was 9:46 AM. My next event had already started(it started at 9:45 AM). I had more than half a mile to cover. It doesn’t take a JMO qualifier to tell that I was running late.

So I had to run a little farther than home base to get to my next event: Experimental Design. I had a physical map on me, which didn’t help because it was weirdly oriented so moving left was moving right on the map. Using that, I got a little lost! Thankfully, the bell tower exists, so I used that(and my short-term memory on how I got to Rams Head) to go back to Greenlaw, where Exp Des was.

I rushed in, and somehow the ES let me into the room, which is kind of surprising considering how the event already started. I met up with PotatoMathster and HZ to work with them. I also saw brandon_y0320 on the Varsity team, who you’ll be seeing a LOT more of later in the post. I think we did OK on the test, and definitely much better than our performance in Scrambler.


Afterwards, pretty much the entire Enloe Exp Des gang walked back to Home Base, where we chilled out for a little. I asked brandon_y0320 and LL if they wanted to explore campus, to which they agreed. We ended up stopping at the Student Store, where I borrowed $10 from brandon_y0320 and bought a frozen hot chocolate, something that I hadn’t had since I was about 8 when my mom took me to the Student Store after she had finished working there. I watched about 3 hours of reels and sent a lot to different people and groups, which was really unproductive. brandon_y0320 also beat Hexagon Force and Electrodynamix for me, which was really easy for him because he’s an actual goat at geometry dash. MAKE SURE TO SUBSCRIBE TO HIS YOUTUBE CHANNEL!!!(GET HIM TO 7K SUBS) I ate a bag of Doritos and drank some Capri-Suns, which was nice and relaxing. I didn’t have anything until around 2:30, so I was chilling until then. We also went into a professor’s room, where there was a really nice speaker and microphone. I used my phone to blast some rap into the microphone, and it surprisingly worked, which was kinda funny then I quickly stopped the music so we wouldn’t get in trouble with our Coach.

HEY, IT’S LUNCHTIME!!! Our coach bought like 10 pizzas for the team, and so we all ate a lot of pizza for lunch. There ended up being 3 boxes of leftovers, so brandon_y0320, DZ, and SQ each took home an entire pizza. I watched more reels and ate a bag of Cheetos(jesus only now am I realizing how unhealthily I ate), and continued on.

After lunch, brandon_y0320, KH, and I decided to “find Genome Science Center” because we would need it for Codebusters. I’m not entirely sure why KH decided to join us, as he’s not actually doing Code, but doing it for the steps, I guess. After we found the Science Center, we went over to the outskirts of Kenan Memorial Stadium, where UNC football plays. We also took some pictures at the Bell Tower, where we posed with the Sko Eags symbol(I’m not going to share those photos because I haven’t asked and don’t plan on asking for permission to release them). We headed back to home base, where I pretty much did nothing.

So next up was WiFi Lab, which had a really scuffed build test(the tripod was really scuffed and messed up). brianzjk carried me on the test because the only thing I did was build the WiFi antenna and he’s taking E&M right now so it worked out(?). During the tryouts, I got 10 meters, and for some reason, I only got 2 during the competition? Very scuffed. Also, I’d already met the ES during Electric Wright Stuff last year so I remembered who she was, which is kinda funny. I also clowned the Design Log(don’t wanna explain), but we still got full points for it. brianzjk was supposed to be leaving right after WiFi because his sister was at All-District band, but he was like “yo yk what I should stay for code” so he stayed by gaslighting his parents into turning around and said he “had a ride home.”

So I pretty much had to rush over to Codebusters after WiFi lab(and I think I destroyed my WiFi build in the process of running), and while on the way there, brianzjk and I met up with PotatoMathster who was our third person(yeah ⅔ of the people doing the event were replacements, but now brianzjk is permanently on the Code team… it’s complicated). PotatoMathster started freaking out about how we had no time, so we ran over there to realize there were 3 other teams that also couldn’t find out where the heck Codebusters was being run. The Genome Science Center was stupidly big, and like every door was locked, but we managed to find it at last. As our ES the girl who wanted us to leave ASAP was back! The test was pretty good, but we kinda trolled the time. brianzjk solved it by himself because PotatoMathster and I kinda dipped and left him alone to do it, which in hindsight was not a good idea. When there were like 30 minutes, we let brianzjk do a bonus hill cipher by himself, while PotatoMathster and I attempted the rest of the problems. THE PROBLEMS WERE ACTUALLY SO BAD THOUGH LIKE THERE WAS NO DIVERSITY. IT WAS ALL ARISTO AND PATRISTO WITH ONLY 2 HILLS AND 2 XENOS LIKE WHAT MAN?! We managed to get all but one aristo and none of the patristos, because patristos are demonic. brianzjk was SO close to solving that hill, but it was more than half a page long(usually it’s like 3 lines long, not 8) and he got really mad that he didn’t solve it. After the test, we complained a LOT to the test writer, who happened to be an Enloe alum. We talked to the varsities, who solved the exact same as we did, with the exception that they solved the timed a lot faster than we did. After the test, brianzjk started freaking out about how he had no ride home and started begging and bribing PotatoMathster into giving him a ride home. In the end, after a lot of begging, he paid PotatoMathster 20 dollars and got a ride home(about 2 hours after the original time).

After I got back, I ate some snacks and then went outside with brandon_y0320 and SQ. SQ wanted to climb some trees, so brandon_y0320 and I recorded him doing that with some commentary and it was really funny. We had a fun time because SQ kept on pointing out what type of tree it was and stuff. Anyone doing Forestry has already gone down a deep, dark hole. I’m not going to share the videos because there’s some questionable language and NSFW content :flushed:

Back at home base, brandon_y0320 helped me beat Clubstep, as well as get the 2nd and 3rd coin in Theory of Everything, meaning that I HAVE OFFICIALLY 100%ED GEOMETRY DASH LITE WOOO THANK YOU brandon_y0320 ILYSM

Also, we threw out the trash and we ended up accidentally throwing away KY’s tool bag, so KY did a bit of dumpster diving to retrieve his beloved tools.

Before the awards ceremony, we had time to do whatever we wanted because we had arrived a little early. I decided to leave the team for a bit and shoot around some basketballs because I’d played before COVID(and never since then). I saw some person playing by herself, and asked if I could join, and she said sure. I quickly learned all my muscle memory and most of my shooting form had turned into hot garbage, and it took me a while to adjust, but then I started consistently hitting threes and whatever. It was pretty fun and I had a nice time.

Right before the awards ceremony, there was someone who was talking about Global Med, but I couldn’t hear anything because the speakers sucked. SQ was raging and freaking because he couldn’t hear it and so I was just sitting there because it was crazy dark and my phone screen turning on was just as bright as the batman signal.

FINALLY! AWARDS!!! People told me to pick up brianzjk and PotatoMathster’s medals because they had left earlier. brianzjk ended up medaling in 4/4 of his events(we let LL(the person he replaced) get the medal for Codebusters because technically LL was the one who was officially on the team). I medaled in 2 of mine: One 2nd place and one 4th. I was pretty happy with that because I hadn’t thought that I had done crazy well. Enloe Varsity ended up placing 1st because #winloe #oneloe.

So we decided to troll around after we got some medals because why not. I had brianzjk’s medals as well as PotatoMathster’s medal, which amounted to 4. Plus, I had someone else's medal, my own, and SQ gave me his, which totaled to like 8 or 9 medals lol. SQ and HZ took a picture of me because I’m collecting those medals like pokemon. Right when I realized that JV wasn’t going to be winning, I gave my medals and all of the medals that I had to SQ, who was on Varsity. But, since there were only 4 JVs at the closing ceremony, our coach let us JVs go up and get the trophy. So I had to ask SQ for some of the medals back, but he dropped them instead of giving me them. I got to hold the trophy, which I guess makes up for the medals(?), but I was still a little sad that I didn’t get my medals.

After the ceremony, the coach gave us our tests back. I immediately went over to KY and TP, the WiFi varsities, to compare tests. We threw the last two questions, and I honestly have no idea how we got those wrong. I did the problem, and then brianzjk checked my work… Also, Varsity got the last problem wrong because Spark Gaps are goofy and KY hasn’t really studied them yet so he assumed it was AM Radio because all the other options were internal components and whatever. I also learned that we were 300 points below the Varsities(who placed 3rd at Nationals last year), meaning that we were only 1 question away from beating them(if only brianzjk got that hill…). We did kinda mid in Exp Des and hot trash in Scrambler, but the experience was very enjoyable. The pictures, the memories, the fun, literally everything was super nice. I have Regionals in 2 weeks(it’s only 2 weeks away) so I need to grind up on Scrambler and remain good in everything else. :pray:

I’ve gotten a little addicted to Reaper, but it’s nothing much because the entire T60 is so sweaty and it’s actually impossible. You need to reap at least twice a day in order to stay T60 smh. Also, I need a multi so bad I haven’t gotten one in a million years I swear to god

I wanted to post this yesterday, but then I realized I don’t have anything too interesting(Regionals is like 5 hours long) for February, so I posted it today. I’m kinda hyped for Regionals tho because I’ll get to hang out with my friends on Varsity and JV1.

Also, Super Bowl is coming up. Predicting the Eagles to win, but it’s gonna be close. I’m predicting a 24-21 Philly W.

EDIT: This aged well.