As the “Battle for MeySci” drew to a close on March 29, four teams stood on the second floor of Meyer Science Center, waiting for their careful egg-cushioning constructions to fall. One by one, the contraptions were dropped from the third floor. If their egg survived, they might be able to win. If it did not, they would have to wait until next year to bring the trophy back to their department.
The Battle for MeySci is an annual competition hosted by Wheaton’s Society for Physics Students (SPS) and consists of five challenges that vary from year to year.
Julia Nordstrom, senior physics and math major and the president of the Society of Physics Students, explained that the event was first hosted two years ago and was structured similarly to this year’s competition.
“We realized there weren’t really any things at Wheaton that had all the STEM departments coming together,” she said.
SPS planned the event over the past few months.
“We started at the beginning of the semester, just putting together games, testing the games,” Nordstrom said.
In the weeks leading up to the event, SPS went shopping for materials and supplies for the challenges, including snacks, chocolate chip cookies for the first challenge and eggs for the final round.
In the challenges this year, contestants had to extract chocolate chips from cookies, guess the pH of household liquids, compete in a mental math Kahoot game, play the board game Operation and participate in an egg-drop competition. The variety of challenges levels the playing field between the four teams, which were divided according to departments: pre-health and biochemistry, physics and engineering, math and computer science, and earth and geology.
Throughout the game, teams of about five students also had the chance to earn extra points for finding golden eggs hidden throughout the building or having faculty members join their teams. The pre-health and biochemistry team was at an advantage the second the games began; joined by Allison Ruark, assistant professor of public health, they were the only team competing with a professor and they also got extra points for having each of her two kids on their team.
The pre-health and biochemistry team also scored well in each of the first four competitions, winning the chocolate chip extraction, retaining their steady standing while guessing pHs and doing well in the mental math and Operation games.
The final round, the egg-drop competition, was perhaps the most complicated of the five events. Teams were each given a supply bag with pipe cleaners and materials to cushion the egg’s fall, along with a mystery item. Each team’s contraption was dropped from the third floor of the building to the second-floor pendulum. This year, all the eggs broke, and points were awarded according to which eggs were most intact and which contraptions weighed the least.
The pre-health and biochemistry team took first place, followed by the physics and engineering team in second, then the math and computer science team in third and finally the geology and earth science team came last.
Junior biology major Mattias Dyrud has attended the event for the past couple of years. “I love seeing all the departments get together,” he said.
Dyrud competed on the pre-health and biochemistry team and was glad that their teamwork and skill sets helped contribute to their win. “I was so happy to bring the trophy back into the BHS department,” he said.
