MADISON – A positive attitude and selfless commitment led Science Bowl teams in Madison’s middle schools to the top two places in regional competition in the Middle School National Science Bowl 2019.

The Science Bowl team at Discovery Middle School won first place to stand as Alabama regional champions. Parent Coach Beena Chopade with 4M Research mentors team members Captain Neha Chopade, Co-Captain Puja Chopade, Justin Pan, Thais Arslanbekov and Constance Wang.

Liberty Middle School stands as runner-up in the championship. Members are Captain Yuti Das, Pranav Somu, Joshua Wang, Neil Sethi and Yashi Das. Carla Beardslee coaches the team.

Alabama School of Mathematics and Science in Mobile hosted 18 teams at the regional meet on March 16. Contestants that made it to the finals played in 11 games or rounds.

The Department of Energy sponsors the National Science Bowl.

“It was only due to the focused hard work of the students and the rigorous practice hours that made this win possible,” Beena Chopade said. “The positive attitude and placing the team before themselves was a feather in the cap for these STEM-intensive minds that aspire to be the scientists and researchers of tomorrow.”

The team trained with material for both middle school and high school regimens. Beena Chopade estimates the students’ practice time to prepare for the contest at approximately 100 hours.

The Discovery team thanked the following people:

* Dr. Shubham Chopade, Nektar Therapeutics — Served as a co-coach and subject matter expert in math, physics\engineering and chemistry. He built and programmed the team’s buzzer system and spent innumerable hours practicing with the team first-hand.

* Dr. Robert Arslanbekov, CFD Research Corporation — Assisted with ‘energy’ questions. Energy is one of the subject categories of questions.

* Thomas Nguyen and Aubteen Pour Biazar, freshmen at Bob Jones High School — Practiced with the Discovery team. Nguyen and Biazar were members of Discovery’s 2018 team, along with teammates Neha Chopade, Puja Chopade and Constance Wang, that placed second in the state.

Madison Mayor Paul Finley plans to recognize both Science Bowl teams at Madison City Council’s April 8 meeting.

“The Discovery team is looking forward to going to the nationals and experience the science competition first-hand amid the best young scientific minds in the country on April 25-29,” Chopade said. The team and the coach will have an all-expenses-paid trip to D.C. and an honor to participate in the national competition and represent Alabama.