Frazer School academic teams compete across the country

Press release from the Frazer School

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Seven different Frazer School teams competed in various events across the country this past weekend, with the Science Bowl team placing 4th at a prestigious invitational competition and a middle school robotics team winning the Triple Crown at a competition in Clermont; two Frazer School robotics teams are now ranked 1st and 2nd in the state.

The weekend’s competitions included the following:

1. The Science Bowl team competed at a prestigious invitational competition in Boston at MIT.
2. A high school robotics team competed against the best robotics teams in the country in Tennessee.
3. A Speech and Debate team competed in Madison, in the panhandle.
4. A Quiz Bowl team competed against the top Florida teams in Jacksonville.
5. The Latin team competed in Ocala.
6. The middle school and elementary school robotics teams competed against the top teams in Florida in Clermont.
7. The math team competed in a 5k run for Joey’s Wings, a nonprofit children’s cancer foundation. In 2014, one of our young math-teamers got a rare form of children’s cancer and passed away at the age of 10. His family started Joey’s Wings as a way to bring awareness to this issue and to raise money to help kids with cancer.

Science Bowl at MIT

The top 48 Science Bowl teams in the nation, based on recent results, were invited to MIT to compete. Science Bowl is a double-elimination tournament format. In what was described by the founder of the MIT Science Bowl as the most competitive tournament they’ve had, Frazer School finished 4th.

According to head coach Marc Moody, the team’s only losses were by very small margins and to teams in the top three nationally: Montgomery Blair (the reigning national champions) and North Hollywood HS (3rd at Nationals). Lakeside HS from Seattle (a team that Frazer School beat at Nationals last year) won 1st place. 

The director of the MIT competition was quoted as asking where this Frazer team came from and why they are so good. Coach Moody said, “In my 15 years of coaching science teams, this is the greatest achievement of any Science Bowl team that I have ever coached.”   

Osprey Challenge Tournament in Clermont

Robotics coach Steven Yu took three Elementary and five Middle School VEX IQ teams to Clermont to compete in the Osprey Challenge Tournament. There were a total of 32 elementary teams and 32 middle school teams.

Elementary Results:

Our top Elementary team Team 13722X – Dippin’ Bots (Ethan Song, Henry Tang, Jayden Wu, Austin Yang) ranked 2nd in teamwork qualifications and 3rd in robot skills, won the Build Award, and became Teamwork Champions! They are currently ranked #7 in skills in all of Florida! They will represent The FIG at the State Championship in late February.

Middle Results:

Team 3722G – RN (Jerry Chu, Darren Huang, Saam Khanal, Shengsheng Yang) is the first Frazer team to accomplish the highly respected and incredibly difficult solo achievement – The Triple Crown. The team won the Teamwork Champion Award, the Robot Skills Champion Award, and the Excellence Award (1st place overall)!!! They are now ranked #2 in the state of Florida (behind another Frazer School team) and #49 in the US in the World Skills Ranking!

Quiz Bowl team

The Frazer School Quiz Bowl team went to Jacksonville to compete in a 24-team tournament with the top teams from Florida, including prestigious schools like Stanton College Prep, Bolles, Pineview, and others. Quiz Bowl coach David Geering said the A team took home first place, going undefeated across 10 rounds of play. The final match was very exciting, as they were down by 5 points at halftime but came back in the 2^nd half and got nearly every question correct.

Westin Martin took home the top individual scoring prize, while Abhiram Pothuri came in 7th. It’s rare to have two teammates finish so high, but these two 11th graders excelled! 

With this win, Frazer School qualified for High School Nationals in May!  

Frazer School Principal Fayiga said, “Every kid in our middle/high is expected to join at least one academic team. We want all of our kids to find something they are passionate about, and we will help them to succeed at the highest level. It is our job to prepare these kids to compete in the global economy they will face down the road. We are also proud of our teachers and coaches who continue to give up many weekends to travel across the country with our kids to showcase their talents.”