Hardest Science Olympiad Event, in your opinion?

[iwonder]

I'd say either, astronomy for the shear volume of information, forensics for time management at the contest, or boomilever for the time spent before the contest building and testing to medal.

[isaysroar]

Well it all depends on which team you're in (B or C). Because building Helicopter isn't all that fun either.

[NerdGirl314]

Well it all depends on which team you're in (B or C). Because building Helicopter isn't all that fun either.

Oh hey helicopters partner! I'd have go agree with you that helicopters can get pretty frustrating but I'd say the hardest events are identifying events. For example rocks and minerals, forestry, ornithology. The fact that they are usually done in stations means that you really have to know your stuff. You don't have time to look through a binder or cheat sheet. Rocks and minerals is one of my favorite events even though its tough. I also did ornithology and I heard someone had a mental breakdown during that event in a competition.

[isaysroar]

Well I mean doesn't everyone get mental breakdowns every now and then... *chuckle*

[ILoveFood]

Okay well, so, I see a lot of things about Materials Science, and it's really not a bad event, unless you get a test that focuses on just ONE part of the rules, but it's really not as complicated as it seems. It is a lot of new information that isn't really covered in your standard high school science courses, I will not deny that. I guess that you do have to learn quite a bit on your own, but I find it really interesting, so I am really happy and interested when I'm studying for it. Maybe it's just me, though.

[isaysroar]

Well I guy this hardness stuff all depends on if you like an event because an event will be obviously hard if you dislike it. Usually you should pick something that you enjoy.

[syo_astro]

To add, I will say all events are hard. Regardless of whether you are good at it or like it. This is also as said in many different ways. You have events that are so easy they're hard, so difficult they're hard, etc. It's all very related...I find in the end talking to other teams everyone feels like they've done well so everyone else did or failed so everyone else did XD. I can go through every event if everyone wants and explain the difficulty...I will say certain events are only more annoying because of rules, but most events find some annoying aspect in that way.

[isaysroar]

I agree. An event that may seem too easy can be easy when you're studying. But, until you get your test right in front of you, you have no knowing of what lays ahead of you.

[mnstrviola]

events cannot be measured by difficulty because it's competitive, so even "easy" events can be hard to medal in. i think i said something about this last year, but events /do/ have different learning/placing curves. some events (dynamic planet, organism ids come to mind) are rarely covered in school, so just studying a bit will immensely help you get from place to place when you look at the lower rankings (20th to 14th). In comparison, events like Anatomy are covered in school. they tend to be very competitive, and the scores are closer. But no matter what event, when you start looking at 1-3rd place it usually is very close.

[r00ki316]

As a rule of thumb, the rules and/or administration of them determine the difficulty. For example, Junkyard Challenge in 2010 was to snap 4 mousetraps in order as close to 60s as possible - simplest event ever to earn near perfect score. Following year, you could have horrible luck with one little thing in your on-site build and drop from 1st to 50th %tile. Similarly, Mousetrap Vehicle is significantly more difficult this year with out of bounds being tier 2, resulting in 2/3 of the teams that showed up in tier 2.

Other events' difficulty can be just as impossible to determine. In consecutive years, WIDI partners struggled at Regional/State but medaled at Nationals. Others' results also show that it's possibly the most unpredictable event overall. I believe someone's analysis of teams' overall and their event placings showed the worst correlation with WIDI either last year or the year before.

Lastly, if I remember correctly, there was a chart with event difficulty/covered breadth of knowledge (don't remember which) a decade or so ago that showed Reach for the Stars (Astronomy) and Mission Possible at the top. This was likely for a specific year and may not have included events like Sounds of Music, which wasn't a perrenial event, or Robot Arm, which most definitely was not an event until recently.

In my opinion, the events are as difficult as you want to make them. Too often do I see students wandering aimlessly in preparation of an event. Part of that is on coaching and part of it could be the students' lack of focus and/or determination to thoroughly prepare for an event, hoping to strike gold with every moment. This is most obvious with building events as the students who rigorously study, build and reflect are the ones who most often earn the top places with the most impressive devices, have the most fun while learning the most. That is probably why some perceive the building events to be the most difficult. The end product and goal is laid out without an obvious path to reach it whereas you can follow the topics listed in the rules for a study or lap event.