Junior and senior high school students from around the state competed in the 25th annual Montana Science Olympiad on the campus of Montana State University.

A new addition to this year's games is the Junkyard Challenge.

The challenge is to build a device in 30 minutes that causes one golf ball to trip four mouse traps.

Belt Middle School student Joshua Fenner and his partner, Jayd, decided to use three bottles, five bobbers, a nozzle, fly line, fishing line, paper basket and a cage. They pour the water in, the cork comes out, other bottle fills, bobbers raise and it pulls the line.

"And snap all the mouse traps, you know, one, two, three, four for the maximum amount of points," Fenner explained.  

Director of MSU's Science and Math Resource Center, Elizabeth Swanson, says students from small schools like Belt win just as often as teams from Montana's larger urban communities.

"That's really fun to see, small schools and big school competing on a level playing field," Swanson said.

"The results are always surprising."

"Well the lines got all messed up and they didn't go up like it would and just got all messed up," Fenner said.

Maybe not the surprising results the team was looking for, but the Science Olympiad is a learning experience.

Fenner offered a few tips for future competitors.

"Don't over complicate things and keep it simple," he said.