SYCAMORE – Sophie McComb learned Thursday that an egg can still crack no matter how much bubble wrap and construction paper you place around it.

She learned it first hand, in fact, when she dropped a carefully crafted egg package from the top of a 10-foot ladder in her school gym. The parachute fell off just as she was about to let the bundle sink to the target on the floor.

“Well, it didn't make a sound when it dropped and our parachute fell off,” said Sophie, an eighth-grader. “But it did crack. I think it was well-structured, but we could have made improvements.”

Sophie was one of more than 200 Sycamore Middle School students who competed in Thursday's Science Olympiad. Depending on their grade, students tested their skills by dropping eggs, rolling marbles, launching marshmallows and storing heat, to name a few of the competitions.

The event is a way for students to be recognized for an academic activity that pulls them into science and engineering, said eighth-grade science teacher and science department chairman Justin Hames. He said students are encouraged, but not required, to participate.

“I hope they take pride in the ability to solve a problem,” Hames said. “I hope they find joy in working with each other to solve that problem, and I hope they learn something. And I hope it was fun.”

It was fun for seventh-grade student Corinn Schusteff, who earned a second-place medal in the “Hot House” competition. Corinn and her partner, Kimberly Hohlfeld, made a house out of household materials. The goal was to keep a beaker full of hot water as hot as possible.

In the end, the temperature of their water dropped by 19 degrees. Corinn said the secret was nestling the beaker inside Styrofoam.

“You have to be really tactful about it,” Schusteff said. “I mean, all of us have hopes that we will win.”

Across the cafeteria in the gym, sixth-graders Hunter Alexander, 11, and Nolan Benson, 12, were busy taking first place in the marshmallow catapult competition.

Using a contraption made mostly of wood and rubber bands, they pulled the beam down almost to the ground before releasing the sugary glob flying through the air.

It landed about 73 centimeters away from the target, the farthest of any team.

"It just flew," Benson said.