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No, I don't think that there is any reason to be creative. The best experiment is one that is simple, can be done quickly, and follows the specified topic.

In my opinion, I enjoy brainstorming. Sometimes you just can't think of a simple experiment right away and you're going to have to be creative to find one.

If you can't think of a simple experiment within a few minutes at MOST, then you need some serious practice coming up with experiments. There is absolutely no reason to "brainstorm" and be creative to come up with an experiment. I'm sure that it's detrimental to spend valuable minutes trying to be creative to come up with an experiment, because that time is far better used on virtually any other part of the event.

eyeball138 wrote:If you can't think of a simple experiment within a few minutes at MOST, then you need some serious practice coming up with experiments. There is absolutely no reason to "brainstorm" and be creative to come up with an experiment. I'm sure that it's detrimental to spend valuable minutes trying to be creative to come up with an experiment, because that time is far better used on virtually any other part of the event.

Yeah you should do practices before because it's mostly format.

I've been one of the biggest advocates of that on the thread. Trust me, I know. But sometimes you don't get the materials you want and you must be creative and think up a simple experiment fast. Happy now?

Creativity should not have to be involved in choosing an experiment. The writer of the test probably had something specific in mind, and that experiment will not involve creativity. It really doesn't make sense to be creative in Experimental Design. The rubric basically tells you what to write, and the choosing of an experiment should be done through common sense and intelligence. If you REALLY can't think of an experiment, I would honestly suggest looking around the room before being creative.

Being creative is not being able to come up with some whimsical thing such as analyzing how much ink a printer uses for different types of font (though that would be a fun experiment). Being creative means being resourceful and able to improvise.

And a dictionary definition:

cre·a·tive
   /kriˈeɪtɪv/
–adjective
1.
having the quality or power of creating.

Hopefully you will be able to create an experiment...

I really have no interest in monopolizing this thread with a long and pointless argument, so I'll just make one more recommendation: Do not get hung up on deciding what experiment to perform. As long as it clearly follows the specified topic, you should be fine. For B division especially, it is always quite clear what experiment should be done, although I'll see how clear it is at nationals this year. However, even at nationals last year (http://www.scioly.org/phpBB3/viewtopic. ... 716#p62716) it was pretty clear, given the topic and the materials, what experiment should be done.

IMO, deciding what experiment to do doesn't have too much impact on how you do, as long as it follows the topic, so just go with the first thing that you can think of, and move onto everything else in the event (because everything else gets you points while choosing an experiment to do does not).

I agree with most of what you said, my team finished top 3 mainly because we had experiments we knew we were going to do and we did them quickly, accurately, and had a very good write-up.

What did you get in Ex. Design?
I got 4th place at state
I replaced some very incompetent people, who got 6th place at regionals
our compitition was about laser beams, and we got some filters with different patterns, and our object was to design an experiment using lasers