Excessive movement of triggering device

[Crtomir]

At a recent tournament, the event supervisors were disqualifying teams with triggering pins (nails, etc.) that were pulled outside of the launch area. They cited rule 3.b which says, "The triggering device must not pose a danger due to flying parts or excessive movement outside the launch area." as justification for their enforcement that any triggering device that exits the launch area during a launch is illegal and therefore that launch is not counted. This rule is extremely vague and leaves it up to the event supervisor's discretion. The event supervisor should realize that most teams use a launch pin attached to a string which gets pulled out of the launch area. The rules do not say that the students can't have their triggering device exit the launch area. In my opinion this is just one of the really crappy things about Science Olympiad. Students spend an enormous amount of time working on their devices only to have them disqualified at a tournament entirely at the event supervisor's discretion, when clearly, most teams have been using the same triggering method for years. Kudos for killing the spirit of STEM enrichment for these kids!

[knightmoves]

At a recent tournament, the event supervisors were disqualifying teams with triggering pins (nails, etc.) that were pulled outside of the launch area. They cited rule 3.b which says, "The triggering device must not pose a danger due to flying parts or excessive movement outside the launch area." as justification for their enforcement that any triggering device that exits the launch area during a launch is illegal and therefore that launch is not counted.

This is absurd.

Yes, there are limits - if you're yanking out a nail and it goes flying over your shoulder in an uncontrolled way, then it poses a danger to spectators. And I would think it is reasonable to expect teams to blunt off the sharp end of a nail, if they're using a nail as a trigger pin - it only takes a couple of minutes with a file.

But in the normal case, this isn't happening. In the normal case, you're standing outside the launch area with a long string, and you pull it towards you and the pin/nail comes towards you relatively slowly at floor level. That doesn't pose a danger to anyone.

I lost a teammate in middle school because of a similar sort of decision at a regional competition. The ES placed her build in tier 2 because of something that might technically have been a rule infraction, depending on exactly how you read the rules, but depended on a particular interpretation of the wording of the rules. The thing she did clearly didn't gain her any advantage. She was a young sixth grader, couldn't get over the unfairness, and walked away.

Event supervisors need to be forced to read and understand General Rule 5.

[knightmoves]

I should add that I am in favor of strict application of the written rules. At an invitational - particularly at an invitational early in the season - I can live with an ES telling teams that their device is in breach of rule such-and-such, and needs to be fixed before the next competition, but not assigning a penalty if it's a minor infraction that doesn't gain the team an obvious advantage. But in general it's not fair to the teams who have read the rules carefully and abided by them to allow rule-breaking devices to rank above them.

But that's not the case in the example you cite.

For Storm the Castle, rule 3b explicitly says that the triggering device (which would include the pin on the end of your string) does not need to return to the launch area after launching. For Trajectory, rule 3c contains the same text.

Your ES is obviously wrong. Your recourse against ES who don't read or understand the rules is arbitration, and if the ES was doing their job right, they'd have recorded the distance of your shots, even if they were going to assess you a construction violation for the pin leaving the launch area. And then the result would be fixable, to the most part, by arbitration, because they'd have the data available.

Oh, and your ES issuing DQs is also obviously wrong. The ES permitted teams to attempt all their launches, and only said the ones where the pin left the launch area were illegal. Therefore your ES doesn't actually think there's a safety issue here, and shouldn't be issuing a DQ. The ES should have recorded the distance for each shot, and assessed a construction violation if they thought you had violated rule 3b/3c, which would place your team in a tier below non-violating teams, but still rank violating teams against each other.

I'm getting more and more angry with your ES. You explicitly cite rule 3b, which means this was middle school Storm the Castle. Which makes it even worse than doing this to HS kids who might be more resilient.

[kjlokesh]

Definitely The Event supervisor is wrong here.

Question: Did your team raised an appeal with the Tournament Director? There will be person from your State Science Olympiad committee
to arbitrate these types of issues.

I'm been supervising build events for the past 5 years. During Invitational ES need to be considerate on flexible on the rules. I always give warning during invitational when the team miss certain criteria that doesn't give advantage over other teams. I have see progress in teams as they progress to Regionals. Apart from grading the teams I feel that's the main role of the event supervisor in invitational.

Have a secondary thread that limits the movement of the pin after its released.

As a Event Supervisor I have made mistakes during the first invitational competitions. The Rules are not always clear, certain rules leave to the ES's Judgement. But we have to use common sense in applying the rules.

Teach your kids about their rights, raise an appeal when such situation raises. Do not confront the Event Supervisor. Politely tell the supervisor that you want to appeal and leave the device at site. Reach out to your Head coach and Raise an appeal. Let the Tournament director or Arbitrator make the final call.

I always carry a copy of the Rules and SO official Q&A. Helps work with the ES or TD.

Its unfortunate that your team got tiered.

Lesson learnt, play safe, never leave room for a discussion with ES. In doubt raise a question in Official Q&A forum and have a copy of the response.

Good luck!

[jgrischow1]

I like tourneys that say "ES is encouraged to apply the least restrictive rule" or "unless it's an obvious safety hazard let them compete." Creating a new rule or a new interpretation most of the way through the season is insane.

Obviously the retort would be "well sounds like you should start it" but some sort of common and ongoing supervising training, above and beyond the event logistics manual, would be quite helpful. Imagine a forum or a Google group where each event supervisor from every tournament can go. They post their observations from tourneys and then later ES's can go and check and see what situations they may have encountered and how they should be handled. If the National ES is able/willing, they can actively monitor the forum and give guidance throughout the year.