Experimental Design B/C

[mnstrviola]

Yeah it's really just a little more math, although the event supervisor may choose to make their experiments involve more sophisticated tools.

This event is a big help in learning the Scientific Method, and it's really fun in general. I can't wait to participate this year

really? that is for Division C only? Last year my coach had us practice that for competition. I'm so excited though

I did that last year 2, but we screwed up at state and got a disappointing 5th. Are team wasn't even called.

What's more disappointing is last year at states when we were tiered down for not having enough materials. If I would have listed like "3 people", "flat surface", or more than we would have actually gotten 4th instead of 24th.

[fozendog]

Our team was 2nd tiered or something at state as well because we did the wrong experiment cause we didn't understand the question they were asking on the board, but we still got 4th. All I can say is that I will never use Alka-Seltzer again.

[piisamazing]

Our team was 2nd tiered or something at state as well because we did the wrong experiment cause we didn't understand the question they were asking on the board, but we still got 4th.

I didn't know they could break XPD into tiers with the scoring rubric. Do you know how they decided which tier was which (I'm quite curious now).

All I can say is that I will never use Alka-Seltzer again.

Alka-Seltzer...one of my friends drank a homemade lava lamp that was made with oil, water, food colouring, and the Alka-Seltzer made it work...I can't look at the tablets again without thinking of that and wanting to puke.

[fozendog]

Our team was 2nd tiered or something at state as well because we did the wrong experiment cause we didn't understand the question they were asking on the board, but we still got 4th.

I didn't know they could break XPD into tiers with the scoring rubric. Do you know how they decided which tier was which (I'm quite curious now).
I think that they did it by the experiment you did cause there were many ways you could do it. It was dissolving the alka-seltzer in water.

[piisamazing]

Our team was 2nd tiered or something at state as well because we did the wrong experiment cause we didn't understand the question they were asking on the board, but we still got 4th.

I didn't know they could break XPD into tiers with the scoring rubric. Do you know how they decided which tier was which (I'm quite curious now).
I think that they did it by the experiment you did cause there were many ways you could do it. It was dissolving the alka-seltzer in water.

Ok cool. I've never been given an experiment like that, so I wasn't really sure.

[fozendog]

It was weird the way the question was worded. And the junior on our team who was taking chemistry didn't know what to do so basically we winged it.

[butter side up]

I have seen XPD tiered based on "Not Following the Experiment Provided."
ie, if the supervisor says that they want an experiment based on mechanical advantage, you'd best make your experiment about mechanical advantage or you may find yourself tier-2'd.
That being said, if you are given a list with the provided materials along with the paper to write on, it will often have instructions for what direction you should take your experiment in. READ THEM! They will often save you from being tier-2'd, inform you of any modifications that my have been made to the standard scoring rubric, and give you the heads-up about specific rules, especially regarding clean-up (like if you should make an organized pile or if you need to return the materials to the supervisor.) Also, the materials list will give you a general clue as to how to describe the materials you use, meaning equal or greater detail than was given.
Most of this was from experience. Two years ago, we were tier-2'd at Regionals (along with pretty much all the other teams- we still medaled). So, it does happen.

[BlueRed07]

The rubric this year http://www.soinc.org/sites/default/file ... 12v2_0.pdf for C stats indicate that a regression analysis is necessary to earn the 4 extra points. As a regression analysis is pretty time consuming,does anybody have suggestions on the quickest way to perform one. Also by measure of central tendency, I assume that since the mean, median, and mode were already calculated, we are just supposed to pick the one that seems to best fits the data.

[fozendog]

For our team, the regression analysis was just a trend line on our graph I think...

[zyzzyva980]

Your scientific calculator should easily be able to perform regression analysis. If you're using a TI-30X or TI-34 (which I strongly suggest, you can pick one up for ~$10 I've heard) you can do regression analysis using the statistics menu (that button labelled STAT). Of course it's difficult to show work using this method, so you might want to do it by hand anyway.