New Jersey 2019

[builderguy135]

Indoor Bottle Rocket is the 2nd trial for Division B.
http://www.njscienceolympiad.org/events ... index.html

Seriously njso?

[dxu46]

Indoor Bottle Rocket is the 2nd trial for Division B.
http://www.njscienceolympiad.org/events ... index.html

Seriously njso?

Agree- why this and also how do you expect people to make a build in so little time?

[whythelongface]

I wasn't kidding about the petition. That's ridiculous.

[builderguy135]

I wasn't kidding about the petition. That's ridiculous.

If no one does this event, this event essentially won't count

[sciolyperson1]

I wasn't kidding about the petition. That's ridiculous.

For hecks sake... (http://njscienceolympiad.org/events/trial/index.html) - "Rationale: To validate the time and effort expended both by team alternates and by event officials in preparing for the trial event(s)."

There's so little time that you even have, AND, the effort in these trials are minimal - either you fail or you don't.

[lumosityfan]

Wow I'm speechless. You simply cannot build a build that quickly and expect to get good results. Also usually trial events in NJ are because someone needed to quickly get an event together. It is not easy to simply "get" a build event together. (That's saying a lot coming from someone who DIDN'T EVEN DO BUILDS MAINLY IN HIGH SCHOOL.)

[EastStroudsburg13]

I wasn't kidding about the petition. That's ridiculous.

For hecks sake... (http://njscienceolympiad.org/events/trial/index.html) - "Rationale: To validate the time and effort expended both by team alternates and by event officials in preparing for the trial event(s)."

There's so little time that you even have, AND, the effort in these trials are minimal - either you fail or you don't.

That's a very silly rationale. The effort by team alternates is validated by them getting to participate and getting the chance to earn a state medal. The effort by event officials should be validated by simply putting on a good tournament. There should be no need for event officials to feel "validated" by anything other than giving competitors a good experience.

If a petition is to be done, I would recommend attempting to contact coaches of all the teams going to states and trying to get them on board. Getting coaches or even other volunteers on board will likely be more effective than a collection of student signatures.

[lumosityfan]

Also counting trial events for official state results is inherently unfair. The point of Science Olympiad is for 15 (or 18) people to compete in 23 events. By allowing trial events to be counted, you've arbitrarily changed that standard. In addition, it wouldn't be the biggest deal in the world if only official team members could compete JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER EVENT THAT COUNTS. (Which in itself has issues such as stretching thin your resources, thus giving teams that maybe don't have enough people for all the events enough of a chance to catch up inherently. This is not an issue of teams being good enough, this is a case of teams simply not having enough people, which is inherently unfair. It's like playing 5 on 2 basketball. Like wtf.) It's unfair that alternates can compete in trial events as well because now you introduce another group of competitors that inherently changes from team to team. If you're going to be fair to every team, then you should at least only have the official team members compete so that it's only like normal Science Olympiad except with more events. Instead, you're arbitrarily giving teams that has that surplus to inherently do better, thus making it unfair for certain teams.

[builderguy135]

I would rather njso run a duplicate of game on as a trial...

[dxu46]

Running trials is fine, but not overcomplicated builds that can't be done in a matter of weeks.