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More than 1,800 students, teachers and parents are converging at Foothill High School today for the Bay Area Science Olympiad.

It's the fifth year in a row that Foothill is hosting the competition, which has teams competing in 23 different events covering biology, chemistry and physics.

In all, 76 teams from 42 area schools are competing, with the students deciding who will compete in which events. They're broken into two-person teams, with some events lasting an hour and others taking all day.

The Olympiad runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with an awards ceremony at 4:30. Four events, featuring robot arms, elastic-launched gliders, boom levers and magnetic levitation racetracks, are open to the public.

Students who win move on to the state finals April 13. The California winners will compete against those from other states at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, in May.

Foothill has made the state finals three times in recent years.

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