Poorly Run Event Stories

[Unome]

But it's not like the stations were remotely lab-based, or something you'd expect out of stations. I've had other stations Microbe tests, but none of them were putting pictures of stuff on the walls and calling it a "test".

Agreed, I wouldn't recommend a station format for Microbes except with really good lab-based stations. I was just pointing that out since this thread is (meant to be) for the benefit of event supervisors.

[John Richardsim]

But it's not like the stations were remotely lab-based, or something you'd expect out of stations. I've had other stations Microbe tests, but none of them were putting pictures of stuff on the walls and calling it a "test".

Agreed, I wouldn't recommend a station format for Microbes except with really good lab-based stations. I was just pointing that out since this thread is (meant to be) for the benefit of event supervisors.

With the exceptions of the events that are part test and part build/lab, all study events can be run as stations, even if those stations are just questions with no lab-oriented task. Heck, I've helped write a stations test for meteorology. For microbes I've seen regular tests, stations, and even a mix of the two (had to go up to the two stations at some point during the test, just whenever they were open). Just because you're not expecting the format doesn't mean that it's poorly run.

That being said, having enough stations for the number of teams per timeslot is essentially rule 1 of writing stations tests. The fact that they tried having two teams per station and you nearly got DQ'ed because of it is really dumb. They should probably just stick to a sit-down packet test next year.

[Skink]

My state strongly encourages station design for everything. A practical reason is supply demands, but there's another more critical one: station design focuses the work. One case study, one photograph, one instrument, one set of data, what have you...SO isn't supposed to be like those 80-120 question multiple choice A&P tests (yuck!). There's far more sophistication in decreasing the number of questions and increasing the analytical component of it.

Now, I admit that I haven't done stations with Microbe because I find three irritating limitations for station-stations:
1. All stations must be of equal time length (where not all problems are designed to be so).
2. In stressful situations, teams prefer to set their own pacing. Some will fool around with their microscope for awhile, while others will skip that and dive into the packet totally out of order...it gives teams an efficacy that they don't have in those bio ID events where there's less than 150sec per station. We can time out teams without making the timing so intrusive.
3. You can't afford the risk of teams rotating incorrectly at a tournament with stakes. It's not just B divisioners that do this.

What I do do to compensate is give a test packet with the following features:
3. The test is structured as stations but without the stations for that focus noted earlier. If I have orphaned questions that I still want to ask, I tend to put them in the back.
4. I have "stations" but not in the way you're thinking. I tend to both perform and establish demonstrations or models that teams can go view at their leisure at any time during the event (or half of the event, depending on the set-up).

Anyway, I think Microbe is fine for classic stations but wouldn't do it, myself. As for the two teams per station, the way around that is to run two sets of, say, eight to twelve stations in parallel. This is necessary at some lower-level tournaments with high numbers of teams per rotation.

[Alex-RCHS]

I think another difference between stations and sit-down is that stations tests penalize those who know some topics much better than others, whereas sit-down tests don't. If I know the microscopy part of MM very well, for example, that can help me on a sit-down test because I can speed through that and have more time for everything else. On a stations test I am forced to sit there for the rest of that station's time when I finish early.

While this is NOT a poorly run event story (I thought the test was pretty fair) NC States had 2 minute stations for cell bio in 2016. None of the were labs, except labeling a compound light microscope.

This year, I assumed microbe would be run as stations at states (it was 4 minute stations at regionals) but it was a sit down test instead.

[Snarknado]

Several times during the last two years, at invitationals in Washington, for Wind Power there'd be test setups that had a combination of high resistance/poor quality generators and crappy fans such that only a couple teams would actually get working turbines.

I ended up winning at an invitational with our blade only generating power on one of the two wind settings (I was pretty good at the written test though).

[alip26]

I did Bio-Process Lab (RIP) during the 2016 season. When my partner and I went to the room where the event was supposed to be held, only to find out that it was moved to a room across the building. When we went to that room, we found out that it was at ANOTHER room. For 10 minutes we we running around trying to find where we were supposed to be.
We eventually found out where the event was, and the event had to start late because no one found the room before it started. So we started almost 10 minutes late.
The supervisor didn't have everything ready, so when we would move around to each station there wasn't all of the supplies we needed and we didn't have enough time to do anything.

[Unome]

From Johns Creek last weekend: not much, actually. Disease was on the easy side, but fairly well-designed. A & P was just 75 multiple choices questions, and not hard ones either - finished in 20 minutes (didn't win though).

[bmd234]

For Herpetology B we had this proctor who clearly had no idea what Herpetology was, and he also probably never used powerpoint. Before he told us to start he put up the first slide, which nobody could read or see the photos on because it was 10 point font and everybody was towards the back of the room. He tried to move the desks up, but it didn't work, so instead he decided that if we needed to see the slides we could just run up to the board, read them, and run back to our seats. I had to read my partner every question, and run up to the screen to see the photos. After spending 10 minutes on the first slide, after 20 minutes of attempting to move desks, he realized that he didn't know how to make the slides change on their own, and he wasn't timing the slides. He then told people that because he couldn't figure it out, they could take out their phones to time it as long as they promised not to cheat. He tried to time it for the rest of the powerpoint by asking everybody if they were finished with the slide, and in order to move on he'd wait for everyone to say yes. If you asked him any questions about how he horribly mixed up Family and Genus, he'd say he doesn't know. Obviously we ran out of time (which happens when you have unlimited time on each slide) and had to cross out and skip like 4 slides. By the end of the test he gave us a bonus that didn't make any sense and told us to fill in the parts that are correct and just leave the ones that don't make sense because he couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.

[bmd234]

This happened at the NYS comp in 2017. This is so funny, so in wind power once we had a fire drill and we left the building only like 10 minutes into the event. We were fine, everything was just pushed back a half an hour. I can just imagine those towers and scramblers and mission possibles, especially the towers, just imagine you loading the bucket with sand and all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off. Still glad I did towers earlier that day

God, I remember that one... not a fun time //
I don't think it was a drill though, iirc some food or something set off a smoke alarm

Omg yeah, I was in Mystery Design when that happened and we just started. We had to give the proctor our materials and restart because he couldn't time it

[KaitlynTung]

For Herpetology B we had this proctor who clearly had no idea what Herpetology was, and he also probably never used powerpoint. Before he told us to start he put up the first slide, which nobody could read or see the photos on because it was 10 point font and everybody was towards the back of the room. He tried to move the desks up, but it didn't work, so instead he decided that if we needed to see the slides we could just run up to the board, read them, and run back to our seats. I had to read my partner every question, and run up to the screen to see the photos. After spending 10 minutes on the first slide, after 20 minutes of attempting to move desks, he realized that he didn't know how to make the slides change on their own, and he wasn't timing the slides. He then told people that because he couldn't figure it out, they could take out their phones to time it as long as they promised not to cheat. He tried to time it for the rest of the powerpoint by asking everybody if they were finished with the slide, and in order to move on he'd wait for everyone to say yes. If you asked him any questions about how he horribly mixed up Family and Genus, he'd say he doesn't know. Obviously we ran out of time (which happens when you have unlimited time on each slide) and had to cross out and skip like 4 slides. By the end of the test he gave us a bonus that didn't make any sense and told us to fill in the parts that are correct and just leave the ones that don't make sense because he couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.

I remember that! He gave us a cladogram for the bonus with 12 spaces but only 11 choices.