A team of Stony Brook University chemical engineering students won a regional Jeopardy!-style academic competition held by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), according to an April 27 announcement.
The ChemE Jeopardy event is a trivia contest that uses questions from undergraduate chemical engineering coursework. The Stony Brook team excelled in the fast-paced, buzzer-based format, answering questions about chemistry and related subjects.
“We [Stony Brook University chapter of AIChE] placed second place last year in regionals,” Ahmed Nihal, a senior undergraduate student and the team captain, said. “Having won it felt like the hard work really paid off.”
The competition included several rounds with elimination rules. Teams answered increasingly difficult science questions and faced features from the original game show such as Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy. “During the game, especially the last round, tensions were high and the air in the room was different,” Joshua Garcia, senior undergraduate team member, said. “I’d say at least 80 people were watching us, it was nerve-racking and stressful, particularly during close moments.”
Preparation for the event was extensive and led by students themselves. Team members created custom Jeopardy boards on PowerPoint and used digital flashcards to study together for hours each week. “The main way we prepared was we would make Jeopardy boards on PowerPoint,” Matthew Roshan, sophomore undergraduate student and team member, said. “One of the team members would make the board and then the remaining team members would compete.” Joseph Herbrandt, another senior undergraduate member of the group added: “We would write custom questions in anticipation of hard questions, and they would show up… It’s a competition that rewards you for studying ahead and going to parts of textbooks that you would never even think about touching when you’re doing your homework or your exams.”
Teamwork played an important role during gameplay as well; players collaborated while listening to each question to increase their chances at buzzing in first. Garcia said: “I think one of our really good strengths about our team is that we were very good at communicating answers within our members while the question was being read… I’d look at other teams and they just weren’t talking at all.” Despite high pressure during finals, Stony Brook finished with a significant lead over other schools: “We finished with 9,500 points in finals whereas second place finished with 2,600,” Nihal said.
Students also described how participating strengthened their understanding of core concepts used both academically and professionally: “I think Jeopardy keeps our fundamentals strong and keeps our research thinking very fluid,” Nihal said.
