Alice Bolandhemat At Gathering, sports captains are constantly notifying us of their victories and milestones: Girls Soccer winning the PepsiCo tournament, Track and Field members shattering previous records, or our lacrosse program beginning to expand in more ways than one.  However, those aren’t the only teams that are celebrating accomplishments as the school year nears its end. The last weekend of April was one for the academic teams at Latin. Robotics travelled to Detroit, Michigan for the FRC World Championship competition. There, they faced off against schools from many different countries. That same weekend, Scholastic Bowl took a slightly shorter trip to the Hyatt Regency O’Hare to partake in the Small School National Championship Tournament, where they competed against the most competitive Independent School Scholastic Bowl teams in the country. Liza Kaniewski, a co-captain of Robotics, described the team’s exciting experience at this competition and the process they took to get there. “We qualified because we were picked for a lottery.” After learning that they had qualified, the team took two cars to Detroit, Michigan to participate in the five-day competition. They placed 31st out of 64th in their division with a total of two divisions. The team finished with a 5-4 record at the competition. Liza said that the team “had such a unique Robot this year with a very original design. It had two arms and almost looked a spider. We ended up winning the innovation award for it! The team spent the entire season perfecting our robot, and we were very happy with how it turned out, as well as how it performed at the competition.” When addressing the future of the Robotics program at Latin, Liza said, “our membership has grown a lot, and I would hope that many more will continue to join. Robotics is a very hands-on way of applying everything we learn in STEM classes. Going to this year’s Worlds tournament was extremely awesome, since it was only the second time at Worlds in our program’s history. I’m confident that the team will continue to qualify for the competition year after year. Overall, Robotics was very proud of our accomplishments this year.” Scholastic Bowl Co-Captain Ana Pranger spoke about their journey to and at nationals. “Our last time at Nationals was during my freshman year in 2015,” said Ana. “This year, we qualified for this tournament in 2A rather than 1A, against significantly tougher competition. We were even able to get two teams, which was our goal for the year.” The A team went on to finish in 4th at the competition on Sunday, April 29th.  Ana continued, “We expected to be top ten, but top four was better than we could’ve hoped for. I know that the team will keep killing it, especially considering how many great seniors they will have next year to lead them.” Another co-captain, Julian Lee-Zacheis also provided some insight on the ScholBowl team’s trip to Nationals. He said, “We had a team beat us at Masonic State that we ended up beating at Nationals, which was very exciting. Illinois is the one of the most competitive state for Scholastic Bowl. It’s much more difficult to qualify here than in other states, so qualifying for Nationals in itself is a huge accomplishment.” Julian concluded by saying, “A strong effort was put forth by everyone, which was amazing to see. It really was such a successful season for Scholastic Bowl. My hope for the team grow both in numbers and in strength. You don’t have to know everything to join. People who do well at Scholastic Bowl are those who are passionate about getting better. There’s no such thing as not being ‘smart enough’ for Scholastic Bowl.”  Both the Robotics and Scholastic Bowl team were satisfied with how they finished their season and hope to return to these competitive tournaments next year.  ]]>