Science Olympiad (SciOly) is a national competition where students compete in 23 events in various fields of science; the topics mainly involve earth science, biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Over 7,800 middle school and high school teams from 50 U.S. states compete each year. Groups of 2 (or sometimes 3) work throughout the school year to study, prepare labs, or construct builds to practice and ultimately be tested. Practice competitions or invitationals mostly run in the second semester from January to Febuary to prepare for the regional competition around March 20th.