Scioly.org

I guess teamwork does.. lol

As a very new team competing in Science Olympiad, these are the factors we struggle most with:

Experience: Last state competition was only our second year running: about half the people on our team had no prior scioly experience. As time goes on, I'm sure our team will get better at being efficient at studying and building, and they will know how to best run the club, but for now, we're still figuring things out.

Access to Invitationals: Our area has a set of invitationals called WSSL: once a month from Oct-Feb, a school hosts a meet with four events. It's nice to have, especially for newcomers, but it's not the best practice for states, where everyone needs to be doing at least two, preferably three events, and each event has two person teams instead of four at WSSL (also, half the events they run aren't official). We do have one legit invitational (MIT), but we haven't gone in the past because it takes place during our midterms week. I think we're planning to go in 2018, however, and that'll really help in preparing us ahead of time for states.

Budget: Our team had literally $0 to work with - we had to pay for things out of pocket, and that meant we went cheap on a lot of our builds. Luckily, MA gave some sort of grant to the top 10 teams at the state competition this year, which included us. It's not a huge amount of money (a few hundred?) but every dollar counts for us, and it'll mean the world to us come next year. Part of this is on us, however, for not organizing many fundraisers.

Organization: Our team is 100% student-run, our coach is there so we have a room at our school to meet in, and that's about it. We have a set of officers, who have varying degrees of dedication and competency. All in all, our team had a hard time doing preparation far ahead of time, especially for build events. It can be difficult to stay on task ahead of the competition when there's no outside presence keeping you focused. Also, most of the experienced people are busy leading newbies in the WSSL meets I mentioned earlier, so it's asking them a lot to prepare practice materials and tryout tests for newbies, study for the event, and then also study for states.

One thing I've noticed (at least here in Div C) is that having a Div B team usually helps a lot. People come into high school knowing what they are doing and what's going on, instead of having to figure it all out right there. For example, Solon and Seven Lakes both have high performing Division B teams. However, there are teams that perform extremely well even without Division B teams (Troy?)

antoine_ego wrote:One thing I've noticed (at least here in Div C) is that having a Div B team usually helps a lot. People come into high school knowing what they are doing and what's going on, instead of having to figure it all out right there. For example, Solon and Seven Lakes both have high performing Division B teams. However, there are teams that perform extremely well even without Division B teams (Troy?)

There are also some really good B teams that don't have (as) strong high school teams. In general the extra experience from B is definitely helpful, but far from necessary.

I think right leadership is the only key to make whole team successful!
HematomaDiseases

Question for the more analytically-minded SciO enthusiasts -

With regards to div B, is there a measureable difference in success achieved by junior high schools (school contains 9th grade) and middle schools (no 9th grade)?

There is a HUGE difference between a 9th grader with a year or two of SciO exposure and an 8th grader with a year or less exposure. Getting 9th graders to return to a middle school team is certainly more of a challenge when they're physically located away from school (esp. if high school is far commute). We've never been able to get five ninth graders on board, but the ones that are definitely experience the most success. That extra year of brain development goes a long way. I'd hypothesize that on average, a JHS will out-perform a MS, but maybe this is leas of a correlation than I think it is

SPP SciO wrote:Question for the more analytically-minded SciO enthusiasts -

With regards to div B, is there a measureable difference in success achieved by junior high schools (school contains 9th grade) and middle schools (no 9th grade)?

There is a HUGE difference between a 9th grader with a year or two of SciO exposure and an 8th grader with a year or less exposure. Getting 9th graders to return to a middle school team is certainly more of a challenge when they're physically located away from school (esp. if high school is far commute). We've never been able to get five ninth graders on board, but the ones that are definitely experience the most success. That extra year of brain development goes a long way. I'd hypothesize that on average, a JHS will out-perform a MS, but maybe this is leas of a correlation than I think it is

I can't speak for other districts but since you are in NY I can give you an NY example. Eagle Hill is just a middle school; they have 5 9th graders, but all those kids attend Fayetteville Manlius High School. Wellwood, the other middle school in our district, has more trouble getting their 9th graders to come back, and the high school is further from Wellwood than Eagle Hill. I don't know about any junior highs, but clearly Eagle Hill has shown you don't need to be a junior high to be successful in B division

MattH2018 wrote:

SPP SciO wrote:Question for the more analytically-minded SciO enthusiasts -

With regards to div B, is there a measureable difference in success achieved by junior high schools (school contains 9th grade) and middle schools (no 9th grade)?

There is a HUGE difference between a 9th grader with a year or two of SciO exposure and an 8th grader with a year or less exposure. Getting 9th graders to return to a middle school team is certainly more of a challenge when they're physically located away from school (esp. if high school is far commute). We've never been able to get five ninth graders on board, but the ones that are definitely experience the most success. That extra year of brain development goes a long way. I'd hypothesize that on average, a JHS will out-perform a MS, but maybe this is leas of a correlation than I think it is

I can't speak for other districts but since you are in NY I can give you an NY example. Eagle Hill is just a middle school; they have 5 9th graders, but all those kids attend Fayetteville Manlius High School. Wellwood, the other middle school in our district, has more trouble getting their 9th graders to come back, and the high school is further from Wellwood than Eagle Hill. I don't know about any junior highs, but clearly Eagle Hill has shown you don't need to be a junior high to be successful in B division

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Daniel Wright doesn't use any 9th graders, since Illinois has (what amounts to, considering the restrictions) a ban on 9th graders in Div B.

Anomaly wrote:Both coaches and participants play an equal factor on a teams success.

Our school started SciOly in 2015. We had 7 members, all of which were Desi girls.

Is desi like a Mensa type club or a school gifted and talented program?

cool hand luke wrote:

Anomaly wrote:Both coaches and participants play an equal factor on a teams success.

Our school started SciOly in 2015. We had 7 members, all of which were Desi girls.

Is desi like a Mensa type club or a school gifted and talented program?

Desi is an ethnic group, lol