Our Mission

CMU Science Olympiad is a student-run organization that seeks to inspire interest in the study of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) among youth by hosting annual Science Olympiad invitational tournaments. Our tournament features challenging exams and rigorous competition, and teams will find it to provide invaluable preparation for Science Olympiad competitions at the regional, state, and national levels.

History

The CMU Science Olympiad student organization was founded in late 2017 by Sarah Yu, Chris Fulton, Revanth Gumpu, and Uday Shankar. Since then, the organization has amassed a group of highly dedicated members who work together to prepare for each year’s event. The organization hosted its first tournament for twelve teams on January 12th, 2019, a second tournament on January 11th, 2020 with more than twice as many teams in attendance, and a virtual tournament on January 9th, 2021 with double the number of teams again. For more information on past tournaments, visit our archive.

Tournament Philosophy

We are all former Science Olympians, and collectively, we’ve been to tournaments all over the nation. We have designed CMU Science Olympiad with all our experiences in mind, to make yours as enjoyable as it possibly could be. Some of the key aspects of CMU Science Olympiad include:

• High Quality Exams: Exams are the core of any Science Olympiad experience. Our team focuses on writing high quality exams, and we strive to stay consistent with the official rules while making our exams challenging. We believe that this approach will create a maximally enjoyable experience for our competitors while also preparing them for future Science Olympiad tournaments.
• Exams and Answer Keys returned post-tournament: We grade and return all exams to teams. Blank copies of the exams and answer keys will be made available to all attending teams, for additional review and practice.
• Rigorous Build Testing: Among our staff are national building medalists who know the rules inside and out. Some are also active Pennsylvania state event supervisors, and our Build Chair has participated in the writing of the national Scrambler rules. We will assess builds strictly but fairly, while providing quality feedback.
• Dedicated Volunteers: A college campus can be confusing to navigate. You can count on our helpful volunteer staff to get you to your events and provide any other form of assistance.
• Streamlined Registration process: We want to make the process of registering and attending our invitational as efficient as possible. As such, we plan to implement a registration process that will keep the amount of paperwork to a minimum. We will also distribute as much information as possible online before the tournament, so that all operations on the big day will be streamlined.

The Team

Executive Board

Our Supporters

We'd also like to thank our sponsors at CMU: the Carnegie Mellon Student Government, the Leonard Gelfand Center for Service Learning and Outreach, the Mellon College of Science, and the Carnegie Mellon Senate. This tournament would not be possible without their support.

Special thanks to Katherine Zhang for designing our logo.

Contact Us

Have any questions or concerns about our invitational tournament or the student organization? Reach out to us at cmuscioly@gmail.com and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.