Poorly Run Event Stories

[Unome]

Did you not arbitrate that? I could see that mess being thrown out of team scores at an invitational, let alone a State tournament where National bids are at stake, yikes...

Only in Illinois (and Ohio, Michigan, SoCal, etc.) If that happened in Georgia I doubt they'd remove the event (based on what I remember from 2015 state...)

[samlan16]

Did you not arbitrate that? I could see that mess being thrown out of team scores at an invitational, let alone a State tournament where National bids are at stake, yikes...

Only in Illinois (and Ohio, Michigan, SoCal, etc.) If that happened in Georgia I doubt they'd remove the event (based on what I remember from 2015 state...)

Ahem, 2014 state and WIDI.

[Unome]

Did you not arbitrate that? I could see that mess being thrown out of team scores at an invitational, let alone a State tournament where National bids are at stake, yikes...

Only in Illinois (and Ohio, Michigan, SoCal, etc.) If that happened in Georgia I doubt they'd remove the event (based on what I remember from 2015 state...)

Ahem, 2014 state and WIDI.

True, but I speak of 2015 state Crime Busters, where a similar thing happened.

[alleycat03]

Did you not arbitrate that? I could see that mess being thrown out of team scores at an invitational, let alone a State tournament where National bids are at stake, yikes...if nothing else, I hope your coach expressed your concerns to the tournament director afterwards so that this individual never runs the event again. I admit that I'm amused trying to imagine what this set-up looked like; I mean, a fox skull, really?

It was all very frustrating. Since my team ended up still getting first and qualifying, it all worked out in the end. If we hadn't qualified, my coach would've definitely challenged it. There were also quite a few mistakes with other events (I don't participate in them so I don't know specifics). There was a new tournament director this year, and my coaches definitely gave her suggestions on where to improve, especially in forensics.

When I went and looked at the physical evidence, I was flabbergasted. There weren't even any questions asked about the physical evidence, so I don't even know why they had it? It was just a bunch of random bones in a box of soil, a dead mouse in a beaker (like what the heck?), feathers, and another beaker of soil. It was extremely odd.

I'm pretty sure this proctor did it the year before, as she mentioned that "this test is so much better than last years." Honestly, there's no way that can be true. Hopefully she will not be in charge of it next year.

[Magikarpmaster629]

Alright so there were a lot of badly run events at Missouri State...

Astronomy- So basically the test was set up almost exactly the same as last year's. They changed the questions (although not all of them), but that's about it. No images, just 100 easy multiple choice questions with next to zero math. I emailed the state director about it last year but it looks like nothing changed. We still weren't allowed to split the test, because the ES couldn't be bothered to print out tests for all teams (which I guess to be fair does take up a lot of ink). The questions mostly trivia questions that resemble the text on wikipedia pages oddly well, which is something the test writer should specifically avoid because we're allowed laptops. I could rant about this all day, 2/10.

Forensics- Again, the problems with this were similar to those last year. The room they got was too small, so they only had two stations for powder tests which made it hard to do those. They're supposed to provide deionized water, however the only water they did give us was in a large beaker all the teams used for their chromatography (another problem), so it was all contaminated (literally blue colored)- not so good for pH tests. On the test itself they had some good knowledge questions, which was okay, however there was no essay, only three essay questions which is very different from the rules' part e. Not great, but I've seen worse, 5/10.

Hydrogeology- This one is very odd. So when I was trying out for Science Olympiad in 2015 and 2016 I studied really hard for Geologic Mapping- it was my favorite event at the time. I was pretty sad I never got to compete in it, but yesterday my wish was finally granted! The Hydrogeo test was the Geologic Mapping test. We weren't all that prepared for it, but neither were the other teams. My partner did Road Scholars last year, so between us we were really good at Geologic Mapping. As far as GeoMapping tests go it was pretty easy and had too much on geohazards, but it was still a fun test, and we ended up winning. Had I not had previous knowledge in Geomapping, I would have had my coach talk to arbitration to get it removed from scoring; which is honestly what should have happened, but I guess none of the other teams did that because it was included in scoring. Overall, really enjoyable 10/10.

[JoJoKeKe]

How about a poorly run competition in general?

The Idaho State Competition was yesterday & I wasn't very impressed with anything except Microbe Mission.

Rocks & Minerals - They had real specimens so that was a good thing, but each station had only 3 questions (with 3 minutes), so my partner and I were able to finish each station with ample time. The fact that I even medaled in this event shows that it was a bad test, because I picked up it up 2 weeks ago.

Optics - The test was legitimately 25 multiple choice questions that we finished in 10 minutes with no calculations. The proctors didn't seem to really know what was going on, but neither did I because I hadn't practiced the laser lab. We somehow got 4th in this event despite the laser only hitting 1 mirror.

Invasive Species - The test was better than last year, but was still way too easy. There were only 35 questions (yes, only 35 in Invasive Species), and we finished each station with at least 1-2 minutes left. Not hard at all.

Ecology - Probably the most poorly run event I attended. 34 questions that were all incredibly easy, with the exception of a few sketchy questions. It was run as a PowerPoint so we were forced to stay for the entire time, and the proctor would say stuff like "Hint the answer is A" which obviously is just great.

OVERALL: This tournament was not run well at all. At the awards there were NO MICROPHONES because there was a softball game going on. If there are only 1-2 microphones in your building there's a problem. Even if they had picked up a Radio-shack mic. or something it would have been appreciated. Fortunately the tournament is moving to the largest college in Idaho next year so I'm hoping they will step up their game along with the increasing competition in Idaho.

[RoboStudent]

Same

[John Richardsim]

From states yesterday:

Invasives - if I recall correctly, it had fewer points possible than teams attending the tournament (assuming each question was one point, since I can't recall any multiple-part questions). They also completely reused the outdoor portion from last year's test; the question numbering on the station sheets didn't even match up with this year's answer sheet.

Rocks and Minerals - I think this one might have had as many points possible as there were attending teams, but I doubt it was much more than that. Each station only had a few questions, but they were three minutes long. I liked this one station where we had to rank three specimens by hardness and identify them. In the directions for the station, it said something along the lines of "Identifying these minerals might be difficult in the time allotted [3 minutes], so be sure to rank the hardness first." (And don't get me wrong, these weren't any sort of unusual or ambiguous specimens by any means.)

Anatomy & Physiology - there were several questions that got repeated between two stations. For some reason, they gave two minutes for the station you started at (wherever that may be), but only a minute and thirty seconds for the rest.

[MIScioly1]

From states yesterday:

Invasives - if I recall correctly, it had fewer points possible than teams attending the tournament (assuming each question was one point, since I can't recall any multiple-part questions). They also completely reused the outdoor portion from last year's test; the question numbering on the station sheets didn't even match up with this year's answer sheet.

Rocks and Minerals - I think this one might have had as many points possible as there were attending teams, but I doubt it was much more than that. Each station only had a few questions, but they were three minutes long. I liked this one station where we had to rank three specimens by hardness and identify them. In the directions for the station, it said something along the lines of "Identifying these minerals might be difficult in the time allotted [3 minutes], so be sure to rank the hardness first." (And don't get me wrong, these weren't any sort of unusual or ambiguous specimens by any means.)

Anatomy & Physiology - there were several questions that got repeated between two stations. For some reason, they gave two minutes for the station you started at (wherever that may be), but only a minute and thirty seconds for the rest.

I thought that pretty much all of my events had poor tests too at Michigan States. Materials Science didn't have a lab portion and the test was only 20 questions, the Wind Power device test was really strange and they only used a 4 ohm resistor (rules specify at least 5 ohms), and the Hovercraft test was probably the easiest test I have taken since 7th grade (like, we just had to write Newton's Laws, answer super simple kinematics questions, and use KE = 1/2mv^2). I think the Division B and C Hovercraft tests were the same except for the Fluid Mechanics portion, which was also incredibly easy. For Optics, the mirrors did not touch the ground, so it was difficult to align them with my templates. There was no guarantee given that the mirrors were perfectly attached to the wood block.

I heard from most of my teammates that the tests were either really easy or really strange - neither of which is good for States. Apparently Chem Lab even had a lab that was designed to take over an hour if you followed the directions.

Everyone was really nice and I still enjoyed competing, but I think the tests at my regional competition (GVSU) were of much better quality.

[MIScioly1]

I thought that pretty much all of my events had poor tests too at Michigan States. Materials Science didn't have a lab portion and the test was only 20 questions, the Wind Power device test was really strange and they only used a 4 ohm resistor (rules specify at least 5 ohms), and the Hovercraft test was probably the easiest test I have taken since 7th grade (like, we just had to write Newton's Laws, answer super simple kinematics questions, and use KE = 1/2mv^2). I think the Division B and C Hovercraft tests were the same except for the Fluid Mechanics portion, which was also incredibly easy. For Optics, the mirrors did not touch the ground, so it was difficult to align them with my templates. There was no guarantee given that the mirrors were perfectly attached to the wood block.

I heard from most of my teammates that the tests were either really easy or really strange - neither of which is good for States. Apparently Chem Lab even had a lab that was designed to take over an hour if you followed the directions.

Everyone was really nice and I still enjoyed competing, but I think the tests at my regional competition (GVSU) were of much better quality.

Oh, and the Optics room did not have a clock. I asked the Event Supervisor if he could give us a 10 minute warning, and the next time I heard from him, he said "One minute remaining". I still had around 5 questions to answer... Lesson learned, bring a watch!