Nationals Event Discussion

[Oly4Life]

I was slightly disappointed by the Division B A&P test. I was expecting more from it, like labeling, smears, histology, and more diseases / diagnosis questions.

I felt the same way!!! My partner and I studied for a much deeper level of content, and we only got a few things related to that. It was a good test, but it was NOT up to the national level, maybe for a school-regional-maybe state level. It was also REALLY short compared to what I expected.

[oatmeal]

Nationals was really fun, and I really appreciate all the volunteers and event supervisors for making it that way! That being said, here's what I thought of the events...

Air Trajectory:
I thought this was (for the most part) run very smoothly. The impound line was very short and quick, despite having to check 120 teams in. That was especially nice because I had a first block event. The actual testing was run very well too - I appreciate that the supervisors were moving like a well-oiled machine and were familiar with the rules (I'm pretty sure one of them wrote them, so...). I did have a little gripe with the fans running: with having a relatively far target and bucket, the air currents seemed to be swaying our ping-pong ball a lot. This is definitely a design issue on our end though, so I don't have too much of a problem with that.

Experimental Design:
This was a pretty standard prompt. However, I did feel like it was a little restrictive in the experiments that one could do - like someone else said, most teams probably had the same IV and probably the same DVs. The electromagnet we made also seemed really weak...maybe we did something wrong.

Fermi Questions:
This was a very fun test, and a good way to end the season. Fermi is one of my favorite events, and I think this test was effective at testing the broad range of topics that a well-written test should cover. I didn't feel like it was overly physics, math, or unit heavy, which is always a good thing. There were definitely a couple odd questions (I don't remember them now, but they were probably the math ones ). I didn't fully understand the peach question until latere, though. I really hope this event comes back as a trial next year, and I would love if the writers of this test would write more such tests (maybe for the Tesla STEM invitational )

Wind Power:
Honestly, I don't have many comments about this event because Washington doesn't even run it. It seemed well run to me: the testing line moved very quickly, the test didn't seem too wacky, it was generally nice. I have a gripe with the chairs - it was extremely annoying that they swiveled but were also on a hinge(???). This isn't really a criticism of the event...just a complaint about the room. The test seemed pretty well-written, given my limited experience - I was just happy that it was nowhere near as brutal as the GGSO test was.

Ecology:
This was my best experience at Nats...is that because it was my best placing? who knows. I was mainly just glad that it wasn't a repeat of last year's Green Gen, where the test was apparently an exact copy of the 2017(?) Nats test. I felt the test was a little too easy for Nats though - just one small mistake could make you drop several places. We made a mistake like that in the biodiversity section. Otherwise, it was a pretty normal test, although the stations system was a bit annoying. according to my partner: "it could have covered a lot more things and make me think a little bit harder instead of just 'read graph'" I agree with her.

Other than this, most of my gripes about Nats were personal issues - not issues with the way events were run.

[Unome]

For GeoMapping:

Section H: Really enjoyed all of the creative math. I felt there were a lot of geometric thinking problems (which probably benefited people with math backgrounds, so slight skew) which tested a lot more understanding as opposed to simply regurgitation. Last two were kinda crazy though. I had no idea how to approach them. Was considering doing some double integrals with a latitude and longitude angle but there's definitely a much faster way. Would love to hear how to do it! Otherwise, hooray for good math and thinking!

Section I: The meteor impact makes a lot of sense given the topography, but the geologic units were quite confusing for me. I had thought of it as a possibility but ended up ruling it out because of some things I noticed on the map. If I'm remembering correctly the crater walls were chemical sedimentary limestones/dolostones which doesn't really seem to match up with the shock metamorphism or debris settling one would expect. The region of higher elevation in the middle was also quite interesting. I haven't seen or heard of craters with that sort of resurgent dome type behavior <- this kinda made me lean caldera collapse but the rock units were very very not in agreeance with that.

In retrospect, I probably should've trusted my brain thinking shatter cone over cop out generic fault answer: slickensides, and thought about it more.

Something general I remember: some of the gradient questions were frustrating. In section I, I think I was searching for the contour lines on the river a straight minute because they were faint and also just contour line are weird. River seemed to be so flat that there were two contours along the entire mapped length which is kinda impresive. The other ones I was a little worried whether the question wanted the horizontal distance along the length of the river or as the crow flies. This would add significant variability and I don't remember the question specifying (I have seen tests ask for both cases without saying which they wanted).

Unfortunately don't remember the other sections and won't get to see for 5 months or smthn

Been meaning to say a bit for a while, but only just getting to this...


Section H: For those last few questions on this one you can pretty much unwind the projection back to a sphere and solve from there using spherical trigonometry. The formulas can be derived if needed (while tough, it doesn't require more than trigonometry and polar coordinates), though of course it'd be easier for a team that's prepared for spherical trigonometry.

Section I: From what I remember (this was the earliest section of the test that I wrote so it's been several months), the map didn't differentiate the central affected units and the rest was very eroded, hence the lack of the evidence you point out. Impact craters tend get that central uplift after a certain size - something to do with isostatic rebound of the deformed rocks I think. And yeah, that was indeed a shatter cone.

As for the gradient, it was indeed as shallow as you saw. I had to make my own judgements on readability and ultimately decided that it was sufficient to answer the questions from the printout. It's interesting to me that you saw a test writer ask about point-to-point gradient in the past.