Tryouts will be 3:30-5:30 PM on Thursday (9/17/26) in Room 709. Makeups are the same time and location on Friday (9/19) the next day. You will have 2 hours to complete as many tests as you would like. Each test takes ~30-40 minutes and we recommend you tryout for 2-4 events total. Please sign up for the events you intend to try out for on the tryout form by 9/13 at 11:59 PM with your personal (not IUSD) email. We will print extras, but if you do not fill out the form we cannot guarantee a printed test for you.

During the test, you will be allowed pencils, erasers, and scientific calculators. Regardless of what is outlined in the official rules, cheat sheets, binders, and graphing calculators will NOT be allowed for our tryouts. Accordingly, tests will aim to assess broader conceptual understandings (instead of obscure facts that would be kept in a binder).

Construction event tryouts will consist of an 8 minute interview on the week of 9/14 during break, office hours, or lunch in Room 709. Remember to come to your interview prepared with a prototype of your device(s), along with any other resources (blueprints, logs, etc.) that will allow us to better understand your device(s). We understand many of you have not had prior experience with build events, so this will just be a low-stakes way for us to understand your thought process and your design goals!

The four types of events in Science Olympiad are: study, construction, hybrid, and inquiry. This year's events can be found HERE. Study events have a written portion/test only. Construction events require competitors to build a device. Hybrid events have both a written portion and a build device or hands-on laboratory portion. Inquiry events do not fall in the other categories as they usually have a very specific format unique to them. If you want to begin studying for the tryouts this fall, scioly.org and soinc.org are great places to start. We have general and event-specific resources compiled HERE.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. We are happy to help. Good luck with your studying!