Poorly Run Event Stories

[Entomology]

The events were all run by first time college students, so it isn't completely their fault, just some stuff to look out for.
1) Mission Possible
I wasn't in this event, but one of my partners was. The event coordinator apparently decided that all inclines were "illegal" and "didn't count". Everyone, including other schools, was really mad.
2) Fossils
This event was actually okay-the test made sense, and I ended up winning the event. However, there were maybe 4-5 tables, so they crammed 3 stations onto each table. THREE STATIONS. That's six people sitting at one table. Due to this, there may have been cheating because we were so packed. (I was literally underneath someones elbow the entire time, it was awful)
3) Scrambler
A coach forgot about his schools testing time slot, and they showed up 3 hours later when they were wrapping it up. They shouldn't have been allowed to compete, but they were.

Entomology, the feedback you gave is always important for us so we can improve the quality of the events at our tournamnts. There are a few points I want to address:
These events weren't run by first time college students. 90% of the Event Supervisors had at least 3 years of experience competing in Science Olympiad and each event had one or more lead Event Supervisors who have judged befored
1) Mission Possible: The Event Supervisor overseeing this event is one of the National Event Supervisors for Mission Possible. He and I are both on the committee answering national rules clarifications for Mission Possible. Based on what I've seen, I think his ruling is correct.
2) Fossils: I stopped by Fossils during the day and I absolutely agree with you that the room is too small. If we go back to Caltech next year, we'll be sure to use a bigger room.
3) Scrambler: This event was running behind and the team you're referring must have been one of those the Event Supervisors asked to come back at the end of the time slots since this event ran nonstop practically up until right before awards ceremony

Okay, thank you for the clarification on Mission Possible! I myself actually enjoyed the competition immensely- please give my thanks to the people who ran Invasive; that was the best test I have taken in a long long time.
As for scrambler, that team actually forgot about their time slot as the coach did not tell them what time they were competing. Forgive me for pushing my point again, but I still do believe that they shouldn't have been allowed to compete.
Either way, thank you to CalTech for hosting the competition this year! It was a great experience and i'm sorry that I only got to go in Div B this once.

[bearasauras]

Thanks Entomology! I'll be sure to pass the note to the Invasavie Species test writer. If you wouldn't mind, can you PM me regarding Scrambler? What I wrote there was just a paraphrase of what the Event Supervisor told me after I showed him the post. Thanks!

[MrPillowcase]

I think the worst event ever run that I've seen was Bungee on multiple occasions. From problems with the height changing throughout the day because the platform was not securely fashioned to bottles leaking sand all over, there have been many problems with this event being run. I think that at either Regionals or State, the dropping device was basically a platform that fell away from the bottle, and if you didn't place the bottle in the exact center of the platform, the bottle would hit the platform as it went down, which would knock the bottle one way or the other, away from a straight plummet. The bottle would often get tangled up in the cords as well from this dropping system. Does anybody else have horror stories from Bungee?

[Skink]

To kick off the new season, I'll throw myself under the bus here for something different. I like to think that I generally prepare a mean event, but, occasionally, this or that goes south. In all my years of doing this, I had never supervised a biology event. There's really been no need when there's always bio people around and less experts in other areas. However, I had the opportunity, finally, at our invitational last season to step in for BPL in place of someone who couldn't do it. I was ecstatic! Some of my laboratory stations involved live multicellular specimens. I don't 'do' insects, so I opted for...snails. The activity in question here involved taxis, but that's not especially important. Sometime during set-up, my assistant wondered if the snails were alive. My response wasn't very reassuring; I didn't know. They didn't do or react to anything. That didn't matter with competition happening shortly, though. We had to proceed as if the snails were beating both the tortoise and hare in a race.

A majority of competitors asked the same question she did: are the snails alive? Some just whispered amongst themselves and went with it, while others flagged us over and asked. I generally let her field those questions because I was amused with the answers she came up with, usually along the lines of 'Just try your best...', not really making a claim about the snails' living status either way. Scoring rolls around, and my assistant had her turn for laughs because some of the teams were getting really snarky with me in their answers. One question for that station was 'I hate to sabotage you, but I kind of did intentionally. This experiment could have been better designed; suggest one way to improve my procedure other than to perform more trials (which you would do with more time). The problem and hypothesis may not change.'. A more-common-than-I'd-have-liked answer was something like 'Give us live snails next time.'. I honestly don't remember if I credited them for that or not. I think I did.

In the end, I don't know if Schrodinger's snails were alive or dead. Most competitors, including my own teams, thought they were dead, but I, for other reasons, suspect they were alive but noncompliant or otherwise totally dull (whoo, applying human traits to invertebrates). I admit that it wasn't my finest attempt ever, but I had a lot of fun with this event and certainly got folks excited about biology...even if for the wrong reasons. I look forward to possibly taking a stab at Microbe at the same tournament this season. However, I don't see myself voluntarily working with snails for a long time.

Schrodinger's snails aside, there were a couple other stations that had hiccups:
1. Competitors really didn't like my dichotomous key station. I thought identifying common fish was a fun change of pace, but nobody seemed to agree with me. I think the problems were less the activity, itself, and more that A)there were six IDs followed by six (brief) questions and B)there were a couple trick questions in the IDs (fish not on the key I provided). Teams should have split the work here but didn't. I did test this station on a very competent individual prior to the tournament, and she failed miserably. So, I knew that this station would be a little difficult and largely didn't care.

2. I underestimated participants' frying of the organism I selected for microscopy. That is, close proximity to the heat from the microscope light for too long made these critters fall apart quickly (and I confirmed this with an expert afterwards). I ended up literally burning through my whole culture and just barely made it through the last rotation.

Anyway, that's my poorly-ran event story. I don't actually think that I did a bad job there or anything, but, obviously, I generally like to avoid the uncertainties associated with Schrodinger's anything...

[syo_astro]

You had them find taxis during the event and burned through a culture?! Gosh, you really do run a mean event ;P.

Though, I'm confused (never did BPL), so was the lab question figuring out whether it was alive? Was this just one question of a multitude/didn't really matter? Microbes hopefully you won't burnt through...but hey, if me as a 9th grader figured out how to find and setup specimens, it shouldn't be too hard, right?

It's funny, I usually don't run labs or builds, and if I do there's someone there experienced with me, so I hopefully haven't run anything "badly" exactly. On the other hand I've probably made quite a few people...upset about my difficulty...but I've gotten a whole lot better at that, I swear! Really, the amount of times I hear people on this site complain about things being too easy, yet competitions tell me I should probabbblyyyyy take it easier. Finding medium is hard :/.

[Person]

I don't 'do' insects

[Entomology]

I don't 'do' insects

I'm actually terrified of most live ones. I'm okay when they're on paper photos but in real life I'm iffy around most of them.

You tend to be iffy around insects when you almost accidentally swallow a butterfly whole.

[Panda Weasley]

I don't 'do' insects

#entoLYFE

I'm actually terrified of most live ones. I'm okay when they're on paper photos but in real life I'm iffy around most of them.

You tend to be iffy around insects when you almost accidentally swallow a butterfly whole.

I can't decide if I want to comment on the irony here or the fact that you almost swallowed a butterfly. Although as a person who has swallowed many a live insect in their life, I understand.

[[NerdyTotoro]]

I don't 'do' insects

I'm actually terrified of most live ones. I'm okay when they're on paper photos but in real life I'm iffy around most of them.

You tend to be iffy around insects when you almost accidentally swallow a butterfly whole.

Can I throw blattodea at you then?

[Entomology]

I don't 'do' insects

#entoLYFE

I'm actually terrified of most live ones. I'm okay when they're on paper photos but in real life I'm iffy around most of them.

You tend to be iffy around insects when you almost accidentally swallow a butterfly whole.

I can't decide if I want to comment on the irony here or the fact that you almost swallowed a butterfly. Although as a person who has swallowed many a live insect in their life, I understand.

I guess you could call the butterfly a SWALLOWtail (Papillionidae) #badentojokes

I'm actually terrified of most live ones. I'm okay when they're on paper photos but in real life I'm iffy around most of them.

You tend to be iffy around insects when you almost accidentally swallow a butterfly whole.

Can I throw blattodea at you then?

No.