North Hollywood High School won the science bowl in both A and B leagues at the Regional Competition on March 4th, 2023, and they are now headed to Nationals on April 27th and will stay there until May 1st. With this in mind, the team is ecstatic and many of them are practicing for their future match and hopefully a win. 

The team was congratulated on their victory by Congressman Antonio Cárdenas (also known as Tony Cárdenas) and many students at North Hollywood High School could ask him questions concerning mental health in students, renewable energy, and anything else that they were concerned about.  This gave students an opportunity to learn more about their environment and their Congressmen. Students as well as Congressman Antonio Cárdenas were able to see the science bowl team and congratulate them on their victory. 

The Science Bowl team is not new in fact it has been at North Hollywood High school for some time now according to Altair Maine a teacher at North Hollywood High School for Ap Physics and Ap Chemistry this year “We started competing before I was a teacher here I think our first team was in maybe 97.

I think Dave Kukla found it.” Later “he passed it to Koh Ikeda who was a teacher here who left in the early 2000s and then he passed it to Len Soloff who was a magma teacher here who retired in 2004 and then he passed it to me” Mr. Maine has been coaching the team since 2006. His favorite part about coaching the team is that he is constantly learning new subjects in science with the students and they are all having fun while doing it. 

The Captain of the Science Bowl team who is a Senior Richard Zhu helped explain the competition for us while the team will be in the National finals he said “The sizable competition is structured into two parts. So first we have first a Round Robbin and second a Double Elimination. So during the Round Robbin we get placed in a bracket with some other teams there are usually around like 8 brackets I would say, and so within each bracket, the teams within the bracket play each other and they take the top teams from each bracket and place them in a Double Elimination bracket. Sort of like a sports bracket where teams play each other and the winner moves on only you have to lose twice to be eliminated. So we have the upper and lower bracket that goes on the entire Sunday which is the first day of the competition and what happens is it starts really early in the morning and it goes really late at night so everyone is tired when they are playing the last rounds which are also the hardest, which is really funny. And so after that, we have two teams left standing at the end and so what happens is the next day in the morning they wake up the last two teams standing and then they play finals and everyone gets to watch. ” He also is very excited to go sightseeing and to see the other teams again since they have not had many in-person meetings over the last three years and the last one was their first. 

There are many reasons why students might join the Science Bowl team, Alex Franks a Senior who is part of the Science Bowl team said “I’ve always liked science and this is a club that really like values and likes science to the extent that everyone thinks that science is fun as opposed to just sums it up if you learn it in school or something.”

Franks really likes how thoughtful the club is and how the people there really care for science and what it can make as well as what it stands for.

Junior Bohene Chao and Co-Captain of the team said “I would say we are all here because we genuinely enjoy science bowl” as Co-Captain of the team he really likes the sport and he admires the team members and their commitment to it. 

For people who want to join the team next year, the members have some advice.

Zhu says “Science Bowl is about what you make it to be maybe it’s cheezy and hell, but honestly, it’s what you study and it’s what you put in and it’s what you talk to other people about that defines what subject you learn and what you in Science Bowl study and do as a team.”

Sophomore, Phoebe Xu says “so I would definitely study; definitely have a strong interest in Stem especially science or math or both before joining the club.” Mainly because they want you to enjoy your time there and not feel like it is a job of some sort.

The team also wants people who love science as much as they do and are interested in all the things it has to offer for the world and the future. 

The science bowl team goes to Washing DC on April 27th they will compete for the trophy on this date making it so that they can win the National title for the Science Bowl team.