What: 13th Annual Mira Loma Science Olympiad Invitational
Where: Mira Loma High School, 4000 Edison Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95821
When: Saturday December 5, 2026
Times:
Registration opens TBA (likely 7:30 a.m.)
Events start TBA (no opening ceremonies)
Awards Ceremony TBA (aiming for 4:30 – 5:00 pm)
Who: Any B or C division team in the nation. We try to allow for a good mix of teams with regard to experience level.
Why: Invitationals are a great way to enrich the overall Science Olympiad experience, hone skills, test devices, and in general improve your team prior to the “official” competitions. Additionally, students can meet like-minded students from distance places, which can create long lasting friendships. In other parts of the country, some teams compete in as many as a dozen tournaments each year.
Events: We will be running all events from the 2027 national tournament (weather and event supervisor availability permitting). In the past, we have also tried to run trial events and will always be looking for schools to step up and run a trial event (a list of possible events is on the national site under "events").
Level of Events: Some events have different requirements based off of the level of competition (regional, state, national), unless there is a specific invitational level, this invitational will be run at the state level. Additionally, we ask all event proctors to realize the varying levels of students in the competition and write their exam with a range of questions (You do not want several teams scoring 100% on your exam nor the high score to be 15%).
Registration: While we plan on having at least 30 teams in each division, in order for more schools to participate, early registration will be limited to ONE team per school. On [TBA], we will open remaining spots up to second teams from previously accepted schools; second teams will be accepted based on the order of their original registration. If you are interested in bringing two teams, please sign up for two teams on the initial registration form. Space permitting, third teams might be accepted at a later date.
NOTE: Since this is an invitational, selected ,out-of-state, second teams have been invited from various schools prior to [TBA] and potentially in excess of the limit we have imposed. If you are traveling from out of state and need to confirm prior to [TBA], contact the tournament director directly. We understand the challenges of traveling great distances with a Science Olympiad team.
FAIR WARNING: Due to high demand, some years, effectively no schools got to bring a second team besides the ones that had prearrangements with the tournament director (usually out of state schools who need to bring two teams to make the trip financially viable).
Regional Registration: Prior to the invitational all teams must be registered with their local regional director. We will verify registrations [TBA] so you do not need to have the teams registered at the initial sign up for our invitational.
Requested Donation: We are asking for a donation of $225.00 PER TEAM (not per school. i.e., if your school is bringing two teams, your registration would be $450) to help us run Science Olympiad. No payment is required (or desired) until the team's acceptance is verified (i.e., the team name appears below) but payment is requested no later than [TBA]. Payment is required by credit card (information forthcoming).
Invoices: If you need and invoice and/or something that doesn't say "donation" on it, please email the tournament director and we will get it out to you ASAP.
Registration Deadline: Registration will close when we are full and/or when we are too close the date to accept additional teams.
Event Proctors: Each team is expected to run an event, in fact, if we fill up, some events will be doubled up and/or some schools won’t have to run anything. If we do not have enough teams, some teams will have to run a second event. Once again, each TEAM, not each SCHOOL, if you are bringing two teams be prepared to run two events. Teams are expected to supply all equipment, personnel, and copies (of exams and all necessary paper materials) for their event(s). When registering the team, please put what events you can run and we will assign teams to the various events. The order of registration will be taken into account, but we believe having qualified people running each and every event is more important than team preferences. An electronic copy of both the exam and answer key for each event needs to be turned in by check-in so they can be disseminated to each participating school in that division (specific details to follow on how this will be done).
Test Returned: All tests taken the day of the competition will be returned to the coaches after the awards ceremony. All blank tests and answer keys will be available to coaches as well. Blank tests and answer keys will not be made available to schools until we receive the blank test and answer key for the event(s) they are running (this has been a problem in years past leading to not all events being available to all teams). Please remember, receiving copies of the tests and answer keys used the day of the invitational is a privilege for teams attending the tournament. Participating teams who withhold exam materials or show indiscretion with exam distribution may be excluded from future competitions.
Awards: Medals will be awarded for the top 5 finishers in each event for official events; for trial events (if any), only the top three places will get medals. Trophies will be awarded for the top 5 schools (if two teams from the same school are in the top five, only the higher ranked team will take home a trophy and other lower ranked schools will move up one slot).
Sign up events: Specific time sign-ups for the engineering/sign up events will be done on-line (specific details TBA).
Schedule of events: We will run as close to the national schedule as we can but minor changes might have to occur due to classroom limitations. If changes do have to occur, we try to open that event up to self-scheduling. The final schedule will be out ASAP but registration and such takes priority early in the season.
Photographs: Photographing/video recording of your own team and/or their device(s) is allowed, but photographing/video recording of other teams, their team members and/or their device(s) is specifically NOT ALLOWED (this is standard for Science Olympiad).
Homerooms vs. “Campsite”: Due to the cost and some schools not cleaning up their homerooms, we are currently planning on requiring teams to set up camps outside. If you are traveling from out of state, we will be able to find a room for you, even if local teams have to camp (an E-Z UP isn’t exactly carry-on size). If the weather is forecasted to be poor, we will provide a homeroom for all schools.
Questions: Contact the Tournament Director, Scott Martinez, at scmartinez@sanjuan.edu
Registered teams: