Poorly Run Event Stories

[Fluorine]

FLORIDA:
At regionals, ES for Scrambler div C decided to choose 12.5m for the distance (rules specify 9-12m)

Not a poorly run event story, but at states for scrambler, a team who did not build a scrambler launcher brought a shovel and a toy car and proceeded to whack the car with the shovel. Not only did they break both the egg and their car on the first smack, I believe they managed to hit another teams device with their egg (that team had already competed thankfully)

Air trajectory at states: The ES decided that "Racquetball, Tennis ball, Ping Pong ball, and/or practice plastic golf ball" meant that it was optional for the golf ball to be plastic. Two teams brought foam balls and were allowed to compete without losing any points. Arbitrations were submitted so I don't quite know for sure what ended up happening.

Don't forget that air trajectory medals at states were given to the wrong teams last year and it turned out the entire score sheet was wrong.

Exp. Design last year was basically converted to Optics. And what was really tough is that the event was a test, the experiment instructions forced you to use certain materials and then asked what physics laws you should use here. My partner and I had to make up physics laws since we were not prepared at all.

[samlan16]

Oh man do I have some stories. States for Florida is a crapshoot in terms of events and quality

1. Florida states is a crapshoot in terms of supervisors and quality. Forensics cancelled because the proctor didn't know the event and just didn't show up. Astronomy used the same test on the forums which we had saved. Wright Stuff was done in the same gym as Elastic Launched Glider and mousetrap car I believe so the clear competition airspace for Wright Stuff was like 1/3 of the turn radius of my plane, not to mention A/C on full blast and an extremely drafty gym where the air pressure dropped noticeably when the door was opened. In addition to that, ELG hitting wright stuff, ELG wins. Just sketchy all around. For Boomilever 2 years ago, the supervisor was just casually bumping his hip on the table. I didn't notice it because competition tunnel vision, but when I saw the video my coach took, it broke as soon as he bumped the table. Still placed second though.

2. MIT. This might sound petty but using pens as stabilizing sticks for Bridges was just sketchy.

Hey, nothing is worse than Georgia 2014. Unome's team did not get to go to nationals because they threw out a large amount of events the team was good at.

[Verdigris]

Lake Nona High School- it's in the Central Florida area. Only 6 teams attended anyway (and 4 of them were all from the same school). XD

Did you guys advertise on the forum or on the Florida science Olympiad website? Seeing as how there are so few invites held in Florida, if more people knew about it, you would definitely have higher attendance.

Yea you would have got a good amount of teams since you would be the only division C invite in Florida. I know for a fact our team would definitely consider going since realistically it would be easier to bring everyone from the team to a Florida invite than compared to going to MIT for example.

Huh, I hadn't realized that before. I actually brought this up with our coach while I was at club today, and she said she thought it was a good idea, so we might do that for next year. ^^

As for Forensics being outright canceled... wow, just wow. I might expect that at an invitational, but at States? (Our middle school team attended States last year, but I hadn't heard about the Forensics thing, probably because we didn't bring a high school team. XD)

[Eggo]

Anatomy at State last year... there was a team with an invalid cheat sheet, but they were trying to argue that it should be allowed because it was an "8.5 x 11" sheet of paper. It had flaps extending off of it that you flipped open for more information. The proctor ended up calling in an arbitrary guy, who let them keep their cheat sheet, but they had to put it on the floor and they weren't allowed to touch it. This ordeal took about ten to fifteen minutes, and we didn't get extra time to work on the test or anything. (How did we get first? The world may never know) I was going to complain to the event coordinator but decided against it because I thought we had failed it regardless.

I'm super late on this, but yes, I remember this vividly. It was obviously unfair, and the two competitors wasted everyone's time by arguing that their extra post-it notes counted, IN the testing room. My partner and I sat in front of them, but we weren't too affected by the ruckus and still ended up getting second

[bernard]

Anatomy at State this year... there was a team with an invalid cheat sheet, but they were trying to argue that it should be allowed because it was an "8.5 x 11" sheet of paper. It had flaps extending off of it that you flipped open for more information. The proctor ended up calling in an arbitrary guy, who let them keep their cheat sheet, but they had to put it on the floor and they weren't allowed to touch it. This ordeal took about ten to fifteen minutes, and we didn't get extra time to work on the test or anything. (How did we get first? The world may never know) I was going to complain to the event coordinator but decided against it because I thought we had failed it regardless.

I'm super late on this, but yes, I remember this vividly. It was obviously unfair, and the two competitors wasted everyone's time by arguing that their extra post-it notes counted, IN the testing room. My partner and I sat in front of them, but we weren't too affected by the ruckus and still ended up getting second :P

Probably could have memorized the information they wrote on them in the time they took to write it and argue for it...

[Cheesy Pie]

Crystal Lake Central 2016 - There were questions on AT LEAST the Fossils test that were not on the rules or the fossils list. And there were three stations which had been made at the last minute.

[Unome]

None from MIT ( well, the Astro test was a little too easy, but it isn't that big of a deal). I'll probably put some stuff in Awesomely Run Event Stories once I can type on a computer.

[UnprunedShrub]

On the topic of MIT, I didn't do bridge myself, but apparently the autoloaders didn't work, and the proctor let a team keep pouring sand when the bucket was resting on the ground. Also, apparently the scoring was waaaaay off. Hopefully someone who did the event can verify.

[samlan16]

On the topic of MIT, I didn't do bridge myself, but apparently the autoloaders didn't work, and the proctor let a team keep pouring sand when the bucket was resting on the ground. Also, apparently the scoring was waaaaay off. Hopefully someone who did the event can verify.

Morals for rookie proctors: be vigilant about supervising your event, watch out for the rare but unfortunate cheater, and READ THE RULES!!!

[varunscs11]

This isn't really an event specific problem but in Experimental Design and Invasive Species, there wasn't enough space for all the teams to have a table so some teams had to squeeze onto one table or had to have rotations in the back of the room. But I don't think this was the tournament's fault because SciBowl regionals were being held at MIT on the same weekend. In the end I don't think it was a major problem. But the tests were amazingly written and were leagues harder than last year's tests!!!!