Science-Based Academic Tournaments at USC, also known as SciBAT, is an RSO devoted to fostering youth STEM education, particularly by hosting and volunteering in existing STEM competitions such as Science Olympiad and Science Bowl. Our members, many of whom were profoundly shaped by these experiences during high school, believe deeply in the power of academic competitions to inspire and empower the next generation of scientists and engineers. These funds will help us in our mission to give back to and elevate the quality and accessibility of these competitions from where we sprouted our roots. 

While our club was only established 3 years ago, we have been able to consecutively execute the largest in-person Science Olympiad tournaments in the nation for the past two years, with the help of the broader Southern California Science Olympiad network. These tournaments include BirdSO in January 2024, and USC Invitational this past January, in which almost 150 middle school and high school teams came to our campus. We hope to further our mission of promoting youth STEM education by continuing to host quality Science Olympiad tournaments, expanding to different types of competitions (i.e. robotics competitions with Viterbi Impact), and also establishing some sort of mentorship program for local, underfunded school districts in these competitions or within STEM generally. 

We are currently raising funds to support our operations for each of our different focuses. In Science Olympiad, specifically, we have two major tournaments planned for 2026: the second USC Invitational in January and the National Science Olympiad Tournament in the summer. These funds will help us with venue costs, material costs, and transportation costs. Venue reservations need to be made for competition events, spread throughout USC campus, and also for the award ceremonies that each tournament ends with. Many services, such as that of FPM, will be required for our events. Material costs include that of different laboratory equipment, chemicals, and setups involved with the different events. It also includes various administrative supplies (binders, lanyards, pens) we may need. Finally, volunteer costs include any up-front travel costs, food, T-shirts, and other merchandise we may provide for volunteers.

For our other focuses, they are a little less developed, but certain costs we foresee having include more material costs. For Science Bowl, we plan to start a mentorship program amongst the local high schools, with the eventual goal of getting them into a science-bowl style competition, which we would host. Funding will be needed for any educational material we provide to these teams, and also things for the competition itself, such as buzzers.