New York 2010

[physicsphan]

Does anyone have the scuttlebutt on Physics Lab? The test, as far as I know, was not according to the rules (it was basically last year's conservation of energy questions with 10 or so Alternative Energy questions stuck on the end--the topic is purely alternative energy and heat transfer, for those of you who aren't familiar with the event this year).

What makes you think "the topic is purely alternative energy and heat transfer"? I did not see that in the rules. I know it mentions both of those topics but it also "but not limited to..."

I admit that I am not claiming that it was a good or bad test, just that it does not seem like it was against the rules.

[Glacierguy1]

The idea was for it to be about energy and I think it fulfilled that. It just included more types of energy than most people bargained for.

[gneissisnice]

gneissisnice wrote:

I agree, a lot of times people are just angry and want to jump to conclusions.
Like 2 years ago, WM got 26th in Sound of Music, judged by the Spackenkill coach (I believe, unless I misunderstood), and we happened to miss 2nd by 9 points, to Spackenkill. The 26th made no sense to us, since the judges said that our Sound of Music pair had the best performance they heard all day, and they went near the end. At first, we were furious, because we suspected sabotage, and we were really upset that that one event, which we usually get 1st or 2nd in, cost us nationals (though it wasnt the only event we did poorly on).
But after a while, we decided that while the judging was still not fair, it wasn't an intentional plan to ruin our chances to go to States, it just happened to work out that way.

I am from Spackenkill and did Sound of Music 2 years ago. Just to clarify, my coaches definitely did not coach the event that year or any year.

Gotcha, must've been another rumor fueled by our anger.
Which was kinda the point I was making, I suppose.

[Melkor6000]

Does anyone have the scuttlebutt on Physics Lab? The test, as far as I know, was not according to the rules (it was basically last year's conservation of energy questions with 10 or so Alternative Energy questions stuck on the end--the topic is purely alternative energy and heat transfer, for those of you who aren't familiar with the event this year).

What makes you think "the topic is purely alternative energy and heat transfer"? I did not see that in the rules. I know it mentions both of those topics but it also "but not limited to..."

I admit that I am not claiming that it was a good or bad test, just that it does not seem like it was against the rules.

I suppose that if one goes by a looser interpretation of the rules, the test was good. However, the "but not limited to" clause could really be justified to include most anything physics- and energy-related.

I suppose that a better and more valid beef with the test would be to say that it was not as well balanced as it might have been. For example, there were at least 2 or 3 questions on potential difference, a couple on capacitors, and several on gravitational potential energy-heat energy hypothetical conversion, but none on solarhydroelectric, tidal, oceanic tidal energy currents (OTEC), geothermal, recycling, temperature scales, conversion of energy and power units, convection, radiation, or insulation.

I suppose in hindsight my previous statement was rather harsh, but I was kind of blindsided, and it would seem better to have the majority of the questions pertaining to topics specifically mentioned in the rules, and adding in other small bits elsewhere for flavor, rather than the other way around. That is, of course, the danger of the SciO "elastic clauses."

[JBoyd-NY]

If you click on the link to see the C Division results and instead see the information from before the competition, you are plooking at a cached version of the page (when you visit a page frequently, your browser will start loading the cached page to get you there more quickly. Problem with that is it doesn't recognize when the page has been updated. Check the date on the bottom of the page - it should be today's date. If it is a date from before the competition, you are looking at a cached version of the page). Simply reload the page (IE and Firefox - click on the rounded arrow on the page header, Safari - click on the rounded arrow in the box displaying the URL). this forces the browser to get the page from the Internet, rather than loading it from your cache.

[Phenylethylamine]

Anybody know what happened in WIDI? WM and a couple of other teams got DQed. Also, did anybody actually finish the chem lab?

I know that for Ward Melville, the Writer drew an arrow at the bottom of the page to mean "turn the page over", but at the end realized she can't use that, so crossed it out. Time was called as she was crossing out, she wrote the word "OVER" right after time was called, and the supervisor said that she can't write after time was up. That's the story I heard... I'm sure teh WIDI people from my team can explain better

What pjgsciorox said was correct. The DQ was a strict reaction, but certainly legitimate. It wasn't anything weird about the event itself, just my stupidity in not dropping my pen as soon as time was called. Essentially, while attempting to avoid a 5% symbol penalty (which I should have noticed much earlier anyway), I got us DQ'ed :-/
It was, however, an exceptionally easy event. It was only ten pieces; I think whoever came up with it was relying too much on the fact that it was a material most teams would never have seen.

Also, I know our Chem Lab team couldn't get the experiment to work and ending up making up some data. I don't know the details or how other teams were effected.

[smartkid222]

does anybody think picture this was run... kinda weird?

Also did anybody else think the dynamic planet test was really easy?

[blue cobra]

Medals were given to top... 5?

[smartkid222]

top 6 this year. Im happy they kept it that way despite the economy the way it is.

[asianidiot]

top 6 this year. Im happy they kept it that way despite the economy the way it is.

well actually they added one more, last yr it was only top 5 who got medals