Experimental Design B/C

[XJcwolfyX]

I'm just wondering how people are preparing for this event because it seems as if my group and I aren't preparing "correctly". People have given us materials, and our goal would be to come up with an experiment, perform the experiment, and write the experiment in the 50 minutes. Are we preparing correctly? Should we get someone to give us a specific topic question and work from there?

Is someone looking at your lab? You should get someone (teacher, or someone else familiar with a lab) to "grade" it on the official rubric so you know what you are consistently forgetting/missing. Add in a topic question, because you always get one at the competitions, so it's much closer to replicating the competition itself.

Yes, we have been receiving feedback. We were just unsure if we were supposed to receive topic questions because from past experience, we were never given a topic question and were simply told to create a random experiment with the materials that were given, but thank you for the suggestions!

They do occasionally, but not always give topic questions. Sometimes they also give a theme... like "gravity" or "absorbency".

[Crazy Puny Man]

Yeah, generally you'll want to have a theme or topic like you will at competition.

Practice like you play (and that means use graph paper for the graphs unlike my partner who sometimes forgets and draws out the axes himself on blank paper )

[Astroknight]

I'm just wondering how people are preparing for this event because it seems as if my group and I aren't preparing "correctly". People have given us materials, and our goal would be to come up with an experiment, perform the experiment, and write the experiment in the 50 minutes. Are we preparing correctly? Should we get someone to give us a specific topic question and work from there?

Is someone looking at your lab? You should get someone (teacher, or someone else familiar with a lab) to "grade" it on the official rubric so you know what you are consistently forgetting/missing. Add in a topic question, because you always get one at the competitions, so it's much closer to replicating the competition itself.

Yes, we have been receiving feedback. We were just unsure if we were supposed to receive topic questions because from past experience, we were never given a topic question and were simply told to create a random experiment with the materials that were given, but thank you for the suggestions!

They do occasionally, but not always give topic questions. Sometimes they also give a theme... like "gravity" or "absorbency".

They always give themes for us.

[XJcwolfyX]

Yeah, it just depends on the supervisor. I've had plenty where there was no theme at all, and some where there is a rich back-story to the whole experiment... Those ones are always the most fun.

[ML]

Hello! Do any of you happen to know who the proctor is? Is the proctor for B Division the same as last year or two years ago? Thank you!

[hmath729]

I'm thinking about trying out for Experimental Design at my school next year and I was wondering... What's the most important part of the procedure that you really can't forget to do?

[GoofyFoofer]

don't ask me!

[Unome]

I'm thinking about trying out for Experimental Design at my school next year and I was wondering... What's the most important part of the procedure that you really can't forget to do?

Everything.

[hmath729]

Thanks Unome.

[Crazy Puny Man]

Thanks Unome.

Number your steps, include diagrams. Makes the ES's job a lot easier.