Science Bowl Tournament 2025
The OHS 4th Annual Open Tournament took place on September 26th, 2025. In a fast-paced science competition, teams competed to answer challenging toss-up questions and win various prizes.
“It's basically science jeopardy. Or if you've played quiz bowl, science quiz bowl with less bonuses,” says Josh Tittiranonda ’26, Co-President of the Science Bowl Club.
The Science Bowl Club, established since the founding of OHS, has sent teams to various competitions across the nation: SLAC Science Bowl Regional at Stanford, Berkeley Science Bowl at UC Berkeley, MIT Science Bowl at MIT, and more. They conduct weekly meetings that operate as scrimmages, allowing students to practice science bowl matches before competitions.
The tournament was conducted over AC and every hour, teams would race to answer toss-up questions. Points are added accordingly. The tournament provides a good introduction to science disciplines offered at OHS including math, physics, chemistry, biology, as well as unconventional categories like earth, space, and energy.
“I would probably say my favorite part was reconnecting with alums. It was really nice to have them back and see how they're doing.” Josh Tittiranonda ’26 says.
The event brought together many familiar faces, alumni and teachers alike, to help moderate rounds. Some noticeable alumni included Rebecca Ahn '25, Keshav Narang '24, and Tei Kim '25 who are students attending JHU, Stanford, and MIT, respectively. The teachers who assisted with the event in were Mrs. Birge-Liberman, Dr. Vetter, Dr. Doherty, and of course, their amazing club sponsor Dr. Failor.
“I would say the hardest part was balancing teams. [...] To make sure everyone had fun, we had to take a lot of care to balance teams and matches and separate our [veterans] into different teams. It wouldn't be much fun for anyone if there was a team of people who have four years of experience playing against first-timers,” Josh adds.
Additionally, they encountered the challenges of accounting for the international and diverse schedules of everyone at OHS. To mitigate this issue, they set up a spreadsheet where rounds, brackets, and times were created.
The two organizers also reflect on the differences in their experience running the tournament instead of attending one.
“I would say when participating, I didn't really see how much goes into it behind the scenes. When you're playing, you sort of just show up and answer questions, and that's it. It's fun and easy!” Josh continues.
“I participated last year. One thing I definitely didn't appreciate last year was the amount of effort and hard work that has to be done by the organizers, moderators, club leaders, etc. As a participant, we only participate and have fun, but we don't really realize the behind-the-scenes part of it. I was part of that behind-the-scenes this year, and it definitely was a lot of fun, even if it was a lot of work. It helped me appreciate Science Bowl even more!” says Vikrant Chintanaboina ’27 Co-President.
Shout out to all the winners of the tournament:
The first-place team was Team A (616 pts), with:
Arnav Bonigala
Tariq Champsi
Rishi Janakiraman
Rheyn Juwono
They were awarded some OHS swag (tee, cap, plush, etc.) and generational bragging rights.
Team B was close behind them in 2nd place (500 pts):
Alexander Braun
Gene Yang
Adam Chestovaliev
Neel Gadde
Hanbi Lee
Thomas Ni
Ellie Wang
You all should join the Science Bowl Club! They host weekly meetings/scrimmages at 12:00 pm PT where they are divided into teams and play science bowl matches.
Here is their Canvas page: https://spcs.instructure.com/courses/9094/pages/science-bowl-club
Here is their instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sohsbowl/