Poorly Run Event Stories

[coprolite_dipstick]

Solar System at Regionals `14. The proctor did not care at all what we did. The testing room was really loud and I could hardly concentrate. My partner also almost got us disqualified (saved by the fact that the proctor didn't care) by screaming the names of others from our school, but on a different team. The proctor was on their phone the whole time, oblivious to everything that was going on.

We still got 2nd, though, so not complaining. I guess.

Anatomy at State this year... there was a team with an invalid cheat sheet, but they were trying to argue that it should be allowed because it was an "8.5 x 11" sheet of paper. It had flaps extending off of it that you flipped open for more information. The proctor ended up calling in an arbitrary guy, who let them keep their cheat sheet, but they had to put it on the floor and they weren't allowed to touch it. This ordeal took about ten to fifteen minutes, and we didn't get extra time to work on the test or anything. (How did we get first? The world may never know) I was going to complain to the event coordinator but decided against it because I thought we had failed it regardless.

There was also the Metric Mastery thing in '14, but apparently that's already been mentioned.

[sciolyboy123]

Last year at State, Metric Mastery was really bad. First the stations weren't in metric units and the proctor was like "it doesn't matter". Then, the measuring and the estimation were on the same sheet (Ex: 1.estimation, measuring), resulting in loads of cheating methods where you could just right something down and then change it once you measured (Ex: 1st guess-18.21 cm, Measurement- 21.09 cm ------> guess: 21.01 cm), eventually my school's coach found out and then had an argument with the proctor and then he ended up winning, so the proctor was forced to take out the estimation and just keep the measuring part (ranked based on how accurate your measuring skills are), and I ended up getting 4th place.

[coprolite_dipstick]

Last year at State, Metric Mastery was really bad. First the stations weren't in metric units and the proctor was like "it doesn't matter". Then, the measuring and the estimation were on the same sheet (Ex: 1.estimation, measuring), resulting in loads of cheating methods where you could just right something down and then change it once you measured (Ex: 1st guess-18.21 cm, Measurement- 21.09 cm ------> guess: 21.01 cm), eventually my school's coach found out and then had an argument with the proctor and then he ended up winning, so the proctor was forced to take out the estimation and just keep the measuring part (ranked based on how accurate your measuring skills are), and I ended up getting 4th place.

It seems like, in every competition, there's always something wrong with Metric Mastery. Last year at state people supposedly cheated and nobody could make measurements, and they ended up just throwing the event out during the awards ceremony.

[sciolyboy123]

Last year at State, Metric Mastery was really bad. First the stations weren't in metric units and the proctor was like "it doesn't matter". Then, the measuring and the estimation were on the same sheet (Ex: 1.estimation, measuring), resulting in loads of cheating methods where you could just right something down and then change it once you measured (Ex: 1st guess-18.21 cm, Measurement- 21.09 cm ------> guess: 21.01 cm), eventually my school's coach found out and then had an argument with the proctor and then he ended up winning, so the proctor was forced to take out the estimation and just keep the measuring part (ranked based on how accurate your measuring skills are), and I ended up getting 4th place.

It seems like, in every competition, there's always something wrong with Metric Mastery. Last year at state people supposedly cheated and nobody could make measurements, and they ended up just throwing the event out during the awards ceremony.

I hate events getting thrown out, it just messes up final scores and knowing how good or bad you did

[samlan16]

I believe we have a winner (just kidding). From the WIDI forum:

Well, I am looking to see what national organizers think of this... since behavior and ethics matter to scientists and those teaching young scientists. I am writing about the WIDI competition for Div B for our state competition 2 weeks ago.

At state, for WIDI, our event team came out of the event visibly shaking. They did not expect to place and so were doing their best to just have a good showing and nothing more so there was no expectation and no reason for them to be so upset except for this:

1. The event supervisor turned the rooms over to high school kids as proctors. These students created such a ruckus, we were all in disbelief when our event team recounted what they had seen in the rooms.
2. The behaviors they witnessed were these unruly high school students picking up a bottle in the lab and spraying it all about. Since this was a science lab, event participants had no idea what was in the bottle and they were concerned.
3. These "proctors" ran about and ran into a TV in the room and were using the computer and not paying attention.
4. One of the proctors used the "F word" for no reason and told the participating teams "Don't tell your coach."
5. This is the worst yet, they left the room door open so that people could see in as well as additional commotion.

These terrible behaviors were reported to the State organizer with our coach within minutes of the even being over. Our impressions, this was perhaps a new way to cheat, by getting the teams in that section so upset and off kilter that teams in an other section were at a great advantage. As it turns out, our WIDI team, would not have been the team that some might have been trying to sabotage but there were 2 teams in our teams' section that have been to nationals. It occurs to us that these high school proctors might have been trying to throw THEM off.

When we have noticed things going wrong in other competitions and notified the organizers, they at least tried to intervene to adjust so that other sections or teams were not disadvantaged. How do you replicate these terrible conditions for event participants when this was so unsafe, disruptive and unethical? All other sections did not have to deal with immature proctors being unsafe, disrespectful and maybe even trying to sabotage the event for their own former school or their friends who were competing. I hate that my mind goes there about sabotage but we have witnessed cheating at state and even adult aided cheating... so I hope that those adults read this and are ashamed of themselves, if they had any part of this. It is all so fishy because I don't think people can accidentally be this outrageous. Do you?

[InfiniCuber]

I believe we have a winner (just kidding). From the WIDI forum:

Well, I am looking to see what national organizers think of this... since behavior and ethics matter to scientists and those teaching young scientists. I am writing about the WIDI competition for Div B for our state competition 2 weeks ago.

At state, for WIDI, our event team came out of the event visibly shaking. They did not expect to place and so were doing their best to just have a good showing and nothing more so there was no expectation and no reason for them to be so upset except for this:

1. The event supervisor turned the rooms over to high school kids as proctors. These students created such a ruckus, we were all in disbelief when our event team recounted what they had seen in the rooms.
2. The behaviors they witnessed were these unruly high school students picking up a bottle in the lab and spraying it all about. Since this was a science lab, event participants had no idea what was in the bottle and they were concerned.
3. These "proctors" ran about and ran into a TV in the room and were using the computer and not paying attention.
4. One of the proctors used the "F word" for no reason and told the participating teams "Don't tell your coach."
5. This is the worst yet, they left the room door open so that people could see in as well as additional commotion.

These terrible behaviors were reported to the State organizer with our coach within minutes of the even being over. Our impressions, this was perhaps a new way to cheat, by getting the teams in that section so upset and off kilter that teams in an other section were at a great advantage. As it turns out, our WIDI team, would not have been the team that some might have been trying to sabotage but there were 2 teams in our teams' section that have been to nationals. It occurs to us that these high school proctors might have been trying to throw THEM off.

When we have noticed things going wrong in other competitions and notified the organizers, they at least tried to intervene to adjust so that other sections or teams were not disadvantaged. How do you replicate these terrible conditions for event participants when this was so unsafe, disruptive and unethical? All other sections did not have to deal with immature proctors being unsafe, disrespectful and maybe even trying to sabotage the event for their own former school or their friends who were competing. I hate that my mind goes there about sabotage but we have witnessed cheating at state and even adult aided cheating... so I hope that those adults read this and are ashamed of themselves, if they had any part of this. It is all so fishy because I don't think people can accidentally be this outrageous. Do you?

Just reading this makes me angry...

[sciolyboy123]

I believe we have a winner (just kidding). From the WIDI forum:

Well, I am looking to see what national organizers think of this... since behavior and ethics matter to scientists and those teaching young scientists. I am writing about the WIDI competition for Div B for our state competition 2 weeks ago.

At state, for WIDI, our event team came out of the event visibly shaking. They did not expect to place and so were doing their best to just have a good showing and nothing more so there was no expectation and no reason for them to be so upset except for this:

1. The event supervisor turned the rooms over to high school kids as proctors. These students created such a ruckus, we were all in disbelief when our event team recounted what they had seen in the rooms.
2. The behaviors they witnessed were these unruly high school students picking up a bottle in the lab and spraying it all about. Since this was a science lab, event participants had no idea what was in the bottle and they were concerned.
3. These "proctors" ran about and ran into a TV in the room and were using the computer and not paying attention.
4. One of the proctors used the "F word" for no reason and told the participating teams "Don't tell your coach."
5. This is the worst yet, they left the room door open so that people could see in as well as additional commotion.

These terrible behaviors were reported to the State organizer with our coach within minutes of the even being over. Our impressions, this was perhaps a new way to cheat, by getting the teams in that section so upset and off kilter that teams in an other section were at a great advantage. As it turns out, our WIDI team, would not have been the team that some might have been trying to sabotage but there were 2 teams in our teams' section that have been to nationals. It occurs to us that these high school proctors might have been trying to throw THEM off.

When we have noticed things going wrong in other competitions and notified the organizers, they at least tried to intervene to adjust so that other sections or teams were not disadvantaged. How do you replicate these terrible conditions for event participants when this was so unsafe, disruptive and unethical? All other sections did not have to deal with immature proctors being unsafe, disrespectful and maybe even trying to sabotage the event for their own former school or their friends who were competing. I hate that my mind goes there about sabotage but we have witnessed cheating at state and even adult aided cheating... so I hope that those adults read this and are ashamed of themselves, if they had any part of this. It is all so fishy because I don't think people can accidentally be this outrageous. Do you?

Just reading this makes me angry...

Same here, this is just outrageous. Why can't there be events that are always run properly.

[chalker]

Same here, this is just outrageous. Why can't there be events that are always run properly.

I wish they could, but there are 'real world' reasons this happens. I've posted details about this elsewhere on SciOly, but it fundamentally comes down to the number and nature of people involved. There are ~300 tournaments each year, with ~46 events, meaning there need to be ~13,800 event supervisors. Factor in an average of 2 additional 'helpers' per event (some events don't need any helpers, others need far more than 2), and you have ~40,000 people helping run events for SciOly each year. Nearly ALL of them are unpaid volunteers doing this in their spare time. Unfortunately, you are going to have 'good' and 'bad' ones in there, and there really isn't a realistic way to ever fully prevent that.

[sciolyboy123]

Same here, this is just outrageous. Why can't there be events that are always run properly.

I wish they could, but there are 'real world' reasons this happens. I've posted details about this elsewhere on SciOly, but it fundamentally comes down to the number and nature of people involved. There are ~300 tournaments each year, with ~46 events, meaning there need to be ~13,800 event supervisors. Factor in an average of 2 additional 'helpers' per event (some events don't need any helpers, others need far more than 2), and you have ~40,000 people helping run events for SciOly each year. Nearly ALL of them are unpaid volunteers doing this in their spare time. Unfortunately, you are going to have 'good' and 'bad' ones in there, and there really isn't a realistic way to ever fully prevent that.

Yeah you're absolutely right?

[samlan16]

Same here, this is just outrageous. Why can't there be events that are always run properly.

I wish they could, but there are 'real world' reasons this happens. I've posted details about this elsewhere on SciOly, but it fundamentally comes down to the number and nature of people involved. There are ~300 tournaments each year, with ~46 events, meaning there need to be ~13,800 event supervisors. Factor in an average of 2 additional 'helpers' per event (some events don't need any helpers, others need far more than 2), and you have ~40,000 people helping run events for SciOly each year. Nearly ALL of them are unpaid volunteers doing this in their spare time. Unfortunately, you are going to have 'good' and 'bad' ones in there, and there really isn't a realistic way to ever fully prevent that.

Definitely agreed having observed the amount of effort needed to write a test for an invitational, but that's no excuse for jeopardizing a competitor's safety as Mareezy said happened.