By Mark Coddington
mark.coddington@theindependent.com

The object of their urging was not a teammate racing around a track or stepping up to the plate. Instead, it was a wooden car they had made using an electrical motor, and it was careening toward the hallway wall.

The students were testing the car as part of the Regional Science Olympiad conducted by Educational Service Unit 10 on Tuesday at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

The annual event brings together hundreds of students from more than a dozen area schools for some serious competition in some seriously scholarly events.

In addition to trying out their electric cars, students brought other created contraptions, such as catapults, wooden load-bearing towers and egg carriers, to test against other schools' entries.

But there were also events testing the students' knowledge of such subjects as herpetology, food science and cell biology.

Those were the activities that drew Cameron Sonnenfeld, a junior from Ravenna, who competed as part of a two-person team in herpetology (the study of reptiles and amphibians) and an all-around science test.

Of course, Sonnenfeld would have preferred entomology, after three years of claiming the regional championship in the study of insects.

"I'm pretty sure they got rid of it because I kept winning," he said, laughing.

He's not as fond of the hands-on projects because, he said, everything he builds ends up breaking even at last year's regional meet.

Desiree Erikson and Kendra Novotny, both juniors at Ord, are a little more enthusiastic about the creative projects, though they're OK with the tests, too.

There's no stigma to the science club at Ord, they said, mostly because it seems as though practically everyone's in it. The school brought the largest contingent to Tuesday's event, with 41 students from grades six through 12.

Erikson and Novotny said they don't consider themselves science people, and they joined in middle school to meet new people and have another way to hang out with friends.

But they said they've seen the difference in the classroom since they've been competing at Science Olympiads.

"You pick up a lot of interesting stuff along the way," Novotny said.

"You kind of have a little more of a heads-up (in class)," Erikson added.

Wendy Alexander, the Ord club's sponsor, said she doesn't have to recruit hard to draw such a burgeoning attendance. Students are drawn by the competitive aspect, but the team knows how to have fun.

Alexander said she loves seeing athletes and nonathletes working together to represent their school. And it seems there's always a quiet, unassuming student who gets a moment of glory at the Science Olympiad.

"It is seeing students get involved and take pride in their school that might not normally get the chance to do so that's the most rewarding part," Alexander said.