Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Lonnie Love said the four area teams have more preparations and other tasks to undertake prior to heading for St. Louis.
"The fact you have four East Tennessee high schools in the world competition is extremely rare," said Love, who managed the 11-state regional tournament in Knoxville that advanced the four area teams to St. Louis.
UT-Battelle sponsored the four teams and 10 other East Tennessee teams during their preparations for the regional tournament.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy's Office of Science. DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science <http://energy.gov/science/>.