Butler Area students show off their ‘High Q’
BUTLER TWP — A team of three students at Butler Senior High School has surpassed the progress of all teams that came before it and will face off against two other teams that have come an equal distance in a “clash of titans” Wednesday, May 17.
The school’s Hometown High Q trivia team is made up of senior Charles Simms and juniors David Krainbucher and Max Channells, as well as an alternate, junior Ava Brewster. They are in the final leg of a bracket that started with 81 high school teams across the Pittsburgh region.
While the three are confident in their trivia knowledge, they acknowledged that the upcoming clash — the fourth and final competition in the bracket — will be their biggest challenge yet.
“We work together to test our trivia knowledge against other people's trivia knowledge,” Channells said. “I believe we have a really good chance to win, I believe we have the tools required to win, but it is still obviously a great challenge.”
Stephanie Peters is the gifted program coordinator and Hometown High Q coordinator for Butler Senior High School. She said no previous team in the school’s history of entering the competition has made it to the final round.
Peters said the team’s success is due to the dedication of its members, who have been taking honors and AP courses “forever.”
“They have worked hard in all their years, and this is the place to show off how hard they've worked,” Peters said. “Between the three of them, they are like one ginormous encyclopedia of everything.”
According to Simms, each competition unfolds over four rounds of questions. In the first round, the teams are asked five questions each, which increase in difficulty as time goes on. The second round is a picture round, where the teams will see a picture relating to three questions. The third round is the “advantage round,” where if a team gets all seven questions correct, it gets bonus points. The fourth round it is a timed round, where the teams answer up to 10 questions within 45 seconds.
The second competition, Simms said, was particularly tense.
“All three teams had a perfect round going into the final round; the only thing that decided it was the fourth round,” Simms said, “and since we managed to get all the 10 questions we managed to win.”
Each competition takes place virtually, so on competition day, Simms, Krainbucher and Channells gather in Peters’ classroom to go through the competition rounds alongside the other schools who are competing via video stream. Each team’s video gets edited together before airing on KDKA, Peters said.
The team members typically get to discuss a question before submitting an answer, which is an aspect of the game Krainbucher particularly enjoys.
“I really do enjoy the trivia part of it, I enjoy the intense competition we have, plus working together with the whole team,” he said. “Even if we're not the one to answer, we're still part of the discussion to answer.”
The third round of the competition will air at 11 a.m. on June 3 on KDKA, Peters said, but the final round’s air date is still unknown.
Even if they don’t take home the gold, each of the High Q team members said they have enjoyed competing in the games, mostly for their shared love of trivia.
“My personal favorite part is my love for trivia; it's just great to learn new things,” Simms said. “Even if you get an answer wrong, you're still learning something new. I think it's really great.”
