Experimental Design

[eyeball138]

Ours pretty much told us exactly what to do

The same thing happened at my regionals. The Event Supervisor said, "This is the question that you should try and answer, and this is how you should do it." I was a little annoyed, because all the teams that hadn't prepared as much were given a big advantage.

So I don't think there's any right way to do it, but I'd certainly prefer the event supervisor giving everyone materials and not explaining how to do everything. I really think it's a disappointment to an event as good as Experimental Design.

[Phenylethylamine]

Well, too broad a topic also kind of defeats the purpose of the event, because a team that happened to have practiced with a similar set of materials would have a massive advantage, since there wouldn't be anything to prevent them from doing the exact same thing they did in practice.

[2win]

Ours just told us to test the adhesiveness of any kind of tape they gave us.

[sadistic_cottoncandy]

we've had a lot of problems that have to do with the properties of water...not that hard, but usually it's pretty time consuming, especially the clean up part.

[eyeball138]

I think that brings up a good point. You need to clean up thoroughly. Losing points for not cleaning up well is one of the worst penalties you can recieve, in my opinion. What materials did they give you to test the properties of water, sadistic_cottoncandy?

[sadistic_cottoncandy]

vials
thermometer
ice cubes (no limit)
room temp. water (again, no limit, really. just don't be completely ridiculous)
hot water
corn starch
baking soda
salt
sugar
paper towels

i think that was all....that ended badly. i had back to back events that morning (all four of my events were lined up, starting at 8 and ending at 1) and we always check each others' work, so we were rushing to get clean up done when a paper towel got stuck in one of the vials. we got 1st anyway, but still.....that was an awkward 5 minutes, trying to get it out.

[2win]

lol, but what did you guys have to test?

[JustDroobles]

On how specific the topic is:

The broadest topic I have had is "do an experiment". They gave us a box of stuff to use and no guidance as to what to do. So, we had to come up with something to test, conduct the experiment, and do the write-up.

In the most specific topic I had, they gave us a numbered list with diagrams telling us how to conduct the experiment. They told us the exact experiment we were supposed to do. We had to conduct the experiment, and write-it up, but we didn't have to do any of the creative thinking involved in coming up with something to test.

It is a HUGE range. The topic can be basically nothing to everything. You should be prepared for it all. If the experiment is given to you, like my second situation, you're golden. Otherwise, if you're in the first situation, I would suggest getting to work on your creative thinking skills. Get a box of junk and come up with as many experiments as you can.

[Phenylethylamine]

The broadest topic I have had is "do an experiment". They gave us a box of stuff to use and no guidance as to what to do. So, we had to come up with something to test, conduct the experiment, and do the write-up.

This is actually against this year's rules. It is specified in the rules that the sup must give you a topic. If that happened in a previous year, well, it used to be allowed, but they found that too many sups were getting lazy and not giving any topic at all, so they changed the rules to say that they MUST give a topic.

[JustDroobles]

This is actually against this year's rules. It is specified in the rules that the sup must give you a topic. If that happened in a previous year, well, it used to be allowed, but they found that too many sups were getting lazy and not giving any topic at all, so they changed the rules to say that they MUST give a topic.

It was this year, but it was at an invitational, so the supervisor might not have paid as close attention to the rules as they should have. Even though the rules do say they have to give you a topic, it's still possible that you can get a lazy or inexperienced supervisor who may not follow the rules to the letter.