\u201cGuys, have the buzzers been tested?\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Feb. 21, volunteers for the 2026 MIT Science Bowl High School Regional hustled around the spacious auditorium, setting up chairs and buzzers and laying out sharpened pencils. The room slowly quieted as all high schoolers filed in, dressed in matching, dark green Science Bowl T-shirts.<\/p>\n
By late afternoon, after rounds and rounds of fast-paced questioning, the auditorium pulsed with tension and anxiously bouncing knees as the final seconds of the competition ticked down.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatients with Tay\u2013Sachs disease \u2014\u201d began the moderator, Gideon Tzafriri, president of the Science Bowl and a senior at MIT.<\/p>\n
A buzzer cut him off.<\/p>\n
\u201cInterrupt,\u201d Tzafriri announced.<\/p>\n
The entire audience seemed to hold their breath. A student from Lexington High School Team 1 offered their answer: \u201clysosome.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moments later, the Lexington, Massachusetts, team sealed the match. The room erupted into cheers, with students vaulting from their seats and rushing down to hug and congratulate their teammates. The final score of the 2026 MIT Science Bowl was 148 to 52, with Lexington High School Team 1 winning against Philips Exeter Team 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I can speak for all of us when I say we feel ecstatic,\u201d said Jerry Xu, one of the members of the winning team. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long-term collaborative effort, we\u2019ve been practicing for many years. We\u2019ve worked together as a team for so long, it\u2019s just such a great feeling to be here with my friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around Xu, the rest of his teammates proudly nodded.<\/p>\n
The 2026 MIT High School Regional Science Bowl marked the Institute\u2019s first time hosting a regional competition, expanding its long-running involvement with the national tournament. While MIT has hosted the national high school competition for eight years, this regional event created a new qualifying pathway for New England schools vying for a place at the National Science Bowl in Washington.<\/p>\n
The competition involves round-robin style questions on complex biology, chemistry, and physics questions, and some topics lie well beyond the scope of regular high school classes. In a long day of tough science questions and rapidly beeping buzzers, the event had brought together 26 teams from 14 schools across Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole team put immense effort into learning about science, enjoying themselves, having fun, and trusting the process,\u201d said Nicholas Gould, the Lexington High School team\u2019s coach and their physics teacher. \u201cIt\u2019s not about the win, it\u2019s the process of getting there, the experiences they take with them and what they learn about themselves and each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
For many competitors, the draw wasn\u2019t just the chance to win a medal, but to further their knowledge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came here because I wanted to be on a science team just because I like science, and my experience has been pretty amazing,\u201d said Vritti Mehra, a student at Portsmouth High School in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n
Others spoke of the importance of representation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud to be a girl in this tournament because as you can see, there are not a lot of females here. But I\u2019m very glad that I\u2019m part of this community because of the friendliness, the competition, and this fostered a love for science for me,\u201d said Katherine Wang, from Lexington High School Team 3, who has been competing since sixth grade. \u201cMy mom has a PhD, so she really inspires me to become the best.\u201d<\/p>\n
The regional marked a beginning to MIT, and an end for many graduating seniors, both competitors and volunteers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of us have been doing Science Bowl since middle school, so this feels like a culmination of everything we\u2019ve done,\u201d said William Jung, another member of the winning team.<\/p>\n
For Tzafriri, the president of the bowl, the event carried a similar resonance, since he also competed in the event himself when he was in high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to finally finish off something that I started in high school,\u201d said Tzafriri.<\/p>\n
As the event came to an end, the winning team lined up at the front of the auditorium, with proud grins and the golden medals around their necks glistening under fluorescent lights. Cameras flashed in quick succession as the event\u2019s organizers and volunteers watched proudly from either side.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get to help kids have fun with science and actively participate in science,\u201d said Jiaxing Wang, one of the event\u2019s organizers. \u201cThe Science Bowl is something I discovered in my junior year of high school: It was very late in the cycle, so I want to be able to help kids like me to compete and have the experience they deserve and desire.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Lexington\u2019s seniors, this event sends them to Washington. For MIT, it signals something larger: a continuous investment into young scientists, encouraging a future full of possibility.<\/p>\n
Source: News Boston \u2013 MIT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At a daylong science competition, high school students gathered from across New England to test their science knowledge for a shot at nationals in Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15086319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[199],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15084207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0.jpg",1500,1000,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0-620x413.jpg",620,413,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0-940x627.jpg",940,627,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0.jpg",1500,1000,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0.jpg",1500,1000,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0-998x665.jpg",998,665,true],"ignition_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0-670x446.jpg",670,446,true],"ignition_item_lg":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0-1340x894.jpg",1340,894,true],"ignition_article_media":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0-510x510.jpg",510,510,true],"ignition_minicart_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0-160x160.jpg",160,160,true],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0.jpg",24,16,false],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0.jpg",48,32,false],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0.jpg",96,64,false],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0.jpg",150,100,false],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/15084207-mit-science-bowl-winners-2026_0.jpg",300,200,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"news.iNthacity","author_link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/author\/atombo\/"},"category_info":"Travel<\/a>","tag_info":"Travel","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15084207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15084207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15084207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15086318,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15084207\/revisions\/15086318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15086319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15084207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15084207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15084207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}