[Post-Invitational Information] - USC Invitational 2026 January 22

Dear coaches,

Thank you all for participating in our 2026 USC Invitational! We are so honored to have had you on our campus. We are constantly looking for feedback to improve upon our invitational to prepare for future tournaments; please take some time to complete the attached feedback form or share the form with parents or students who wish to share feedback regarding our invitational.

We are also making public the tests and keys for our invitational. You will be able to view them using this link.

Finally, the scores on Duosmium will be finalized after January 25th.

Thank you again for your support, and we hope to see you all next year!

Best,
The USC Invitational Team

[Coaches Final Update] - USC Invitational 2026 January 16

Hi Coaches,

We are now 1 day away from the competition. Hope you all are excited! Here are the last announcements before the competition.

(1) The Schedule of Events has been made and is available. You can view Division B here and Division C here.

(2) Build Clarifications:

Impounds for Bungee Drop are in TCC 320A.

The room for Helicopter B/C is GFS 101. The dimensions of this room are 2.92 m height, 9.4 m width on the blackboard/projector screen side, and 7.15 m width on the side along the side from the front to the back of the classroom. You can see a brief image of the room in Room Finder. We will have the AC off in this room, so air current should not be an issue.

The hovercraft surface will be on wooden boards inside the USC’s Franklin Suites. The ramp/incline is also a wooden board.

(3) Awards ceremony instructions:

Only competitors and their coaches will be allowed in Bovard Auditorium for the award ceremony. Please show your wristband with your team number to the Board staff in order to be directed to your seats. Parents, relatives, and alternates can go to SGM 123/124 to view the ceremony livestream.

The schedule for awards is listed below:

5:15 PM: Doors open for Div B
6:00-6:45 PM: Division B awards
7:15 PM: Doors open for Div C
8:00 PM - 8:45 PM: Division C awards

(4) The appeals form is linked here. Fill it out to dispute any perceived violations of the rules or rule clarifications. Only the head coach is allowed to fill out the form, and appeals should be submitted no later than an hour after the tournament is over (4:15 P.M.).

(5) Please remember to submit the "Combined Forms" to Google Drive. Your team will not be able to compete without them in the Drive and you will need to have them in before events start (we will confirm they are in the drive during team check-in)

(6) We want to remind everyone that all participants in Engineering CAD must submit this Google Form by the day before the tournament (January 16th).

Best,
The USC Invitational Team

[Lab Tours Open] - USC Invitational 2026 January 12

Hello Coaches,

This year, teams will have the opportunity to enter a lottery to tour a USC lab space, led by USC scientists! Students will be able to interact with the scientists and ask questions.

Lab tours will be 15 minutes long, running from 4:00pm to 6:00pm. Spots are limited, so teams that register their interest will be entered into a lottery. The Quantum Computing Lab and Anderegg Lab will ONLY be open to high school students.

If selected, each team must provide a coach, parent, or adult volunteer to attend the tour as a chaperone. Each team that is selected may only pick one lab to tour in a certain time block.

The deadline to register your interest is Wednesday, January 14th at 11:59PM PDT. Coaches will be notified by the end of Thursday, January 15th on if their team has been selected and provided with further details.

Please only fill in the form for one team at a time. You may only submit the form once for each team. If you have multiple teams in your school, you can submit it for each team (for example, if your school has 3 teams, you may submit the form three times, once for each team). If this is the case, and multiple teams from the same school are accepted into different labs, you may shift members around between labs as long as they are from the same school.

If your team is interested in this lab tour opportunity and can come at this time, please fill out this form by the deadline.

Best,
The USC Invitational Team

[Coaches Update #2] January 8

Hello Coaches,

We hope you are having a great new year! There are only nine more days until the USC Invitational, and we have some very important information and reminders that we would like to share.

(1) Team folders were sent out on Dec 11, 2025 to the head coach of each team for submission of the parental/legal guardian consent forms, photo/media release forms, and lab safety forms linked in the “Combined Forms” link in the Additional Forms section section. Please remember to have each student sign and submit these forms to the appropriate team folder, as they will not be able to participate otherwise.

(2) Team numbers can be found in the Tournament Info section or by viewing your school’s team folders. The lowest team number is assigned to the “A” team, the next higher number is given to the “B” team, etc.

(3) We are now accepting team name suggestions. If you would like to have specialized names for your teams (i.e. Highschool XX Team Gold), you can let us know at uscinvite@socalscioly.org. Please be sure to send appropriate and reasonably pronounceable names.

(4) Roster forms will be collected on the day of the tournament, so they do not need to be submitted via the team folders.

(5) The tournament will be using national rules for all events. Teams should prepare with those rules in mind.

As such, Electric Vehicle will have an event time bonus and Robot Tour will have a track time bonus.

(6) As a reminder, please complete your IdealLogic Portal if you will have chaperones overseeing multiple students. Attach this emergency plan in the process. Instructions can be found here. Please ensure a school administrator can help confirm these details.

(7) Parking will be at the Royal Structure, Downey Way Structure, and McCarthy Way. Teams 1-30 in the Downey Way Parking, Teams 31-60 in McCarthy Way, Teams 61-90 in Royal Structure. Please enter via these instructions. Parking in the structures will be $20.50 all day (so you can leave and return without paying extra). Payment will be via online. Instructions are attached here. If you are coming by bus, we recommend the drop-off locations, which are starred along each route to the parking structure. We recommend that after getting dropped off, you tell the bus driver to park at the California Science Center.

(8) Team registration is on the first floor of Ronald Tutor Hall (RTH): 3710 McClintock Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90089.

(9) Your team can head to your home camp space any time in the morning, which you can find on the map attached here. Your space will be large enough to fit at least a standard 10’x10’ tent. There are no restrictions on the weight of sandbags or whatever you are using to keep them down.

(10) All participants in Engineering CAD must submit this Google Form by the day before the tournament (January 16th). This is to ensure that on the tournament day, Event Supervisors do not have to ask participants for them during the time block, delaying the event start.

(11) Please fill out this form regarding any potential accessibility needs. Your team will be connected with the USC ADA Office for any special accommodations.

(12) We will be offering some lab tours again on the day of the tournament. More details will be shared with teams in the coming days.

Best,
USC Invitational Team
On behalf of SciBAT and Southern California Science Olympiad

[Coaches Update #1] November 20

Hello Coaches,

Thank you for registering for the USC Invitational! With the tournament on the horizon, we want to share some important announcements and reminders.

Announcements:

(2) In accordance with the USC Office of Youth Protection, please follow these directions to properly assign your school to USC’s IdealLogic platform. In this platform, you will require a list of chaperones as well as your intended school administrator who can sign two attestation forms digitally (i.e. principal, district administrator, etc). Alternatively, each student can come with a parent or guardian, in which case no attestation form is required; please email us if this is the case.
USC also requires us to maintain a 1:12 ratio of adults to minors for high schoolers and a 1:10 ratio for middle schoolers, so please keep this in mind when organizing teams.

(3) Each student will need to fill out parental/legal guardian consent forms, photo/media release forms, and lab safety forms before being able to participate. These can be downloaded via the "Combined Forms" link in the "Additional Forms" section below. Registered teams will be emailed a link where they can submit these forms.

Reminders:

(1) Please submit the Certificate of Insurance in accordance with the instructions found at the bottom of the USC Invitational Page.

(2) If you are looking to travel by bus to USC, please inform us ahead of time. We will be sharing information about bus parking at the California Science Center just across the street, along with the closest entrances on campus.

(3) Please bring lab coats (not aprons) to the tournament. Competitors without the proper PPE will not be allowed to enter the competition spaces for lab events. If you need any assistance or questions about the lab coats and lab safety expectations, please let us know as soon as possible.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at uscinvite@socalscioly.org. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you at the USC Invitational!

Best,
USC Invitational Team
On behalf of SciBAT and Southern California Science Olympiad

The 2026 USC Invitational Registration is Now Open! October 22

Thank you for your incredible patience and support! After a year-long wait, we are excited to announce the return of the second USC Invitational. With the largest invitational in the nation, we hope to further our commitment to providing a collaborative science environment and unforgettable memories for our competitors.

Date: Saturday, January 17th, 2026
Location: University of Southern California (USC)
Division: B and C
Teams: 90 maximum per division, 180 maximum total
Registration: $295

Registration is now open and can be accessed with the Register Now button above. Additional information for the tournament is available here, including a payment link, map, roster form, and more in the Downloads & Links section. Some information will be changed or added in the future, so please stay tuned for future updates. For further questions, email us at uscinvite@socalscioly.org.

We can't wait to see you compete this coming winter!