Hundreds of Fresno County high school students face off at the Science Olympiad

CLOVIS, Calif. (KFSN) -- The cream of the competitive crop is bubbling to the surface this weekend at Clovis North.

These high schoolers have burned the midnight oil for months to prepare for the Science Olympiad, dueling in a series of team events from different scientific disciplines.

In this room, when they take a powder, they're testing its forensics like crime scene investigators.

While they solved crimes, these students built the classic scientific mind trap, the Rube Goldberg machine, designed to do a simple task in the most complicated fashion.

And in another room, they tested out the science of music.

University High's homemade zither played a few true notes, but had some difficulties, and the judge was quick with advice to improve it.

Written testing focused on anatomy, physics, and earth science.

But the hands-on engineering-style projects revved up the excitement.

"So, these are basic mousetrap vehicles, and we were set to make it go forward eight meters with a cup and stop at that point then reverse into a certain vehicle target point," said Central West student Elizabeth McBrearty.

"In between one meter and two meters," said Central West student Sarah Sanchez.

Our future problem solvers, researchers, and inventors are developing their own scientific paths.

And they're learning what they'll need to pave it.

In the high school competition, the winner was the hosts, Clovis North. University High and Clovis West won silver and bronze.

And in the middle school category, the hosts won again. Granite Ridge won gold, Computech took silver, and Baird won the bronze.