Write It Do It B/C

[haverstall]

I didn't like the build at nats, because it was a race build. My partner and I mainly prepared for this event by describing hard builds, so we shot for accuracy rather than speed. I guess it's as much our fault, for not preparing adequately.

[Gemma W]

I don't know, I do the writing not the building, but I guess it depends on how much description the writer includes. The most efficient would be the most information in the fewest words, to make it faster to read. If you can get it concise but descriptive, then you should be all set. This is similar to the ideas discussed on the wiki and earlier in the thread. But it's true that it was a bit of a struggle to finish writing on time; my hand felt like it was going to fall off by the end. I only used one page double sided though.

[lucwilder42]

Division c was mostly knex, a few Tinkertoy wheels, a bouncy ball, a bendy straw, a foam rectangle and a paperclip. Looked kinda like a car or medieval catapult on wheels. Pretty cool structure overall, much better than regionals and state

[Gemma W]

Write it do it is an event pretty much every year, so that's at least one event that will still be useful next year. It's a good event.

[personasaurus rex]

Write it do it is an event pretty much every year, so that's at least one event that will still be useful next year. It's a good event.

Congratulations, you are probably the first person I have ever heard say that. The usual general consensus of WIDI is "wtf this event sucks why is it here it's so unpredictable and hard to prepare for."

[googlyfrog]

Basically, the only thing I like about WIDI is that I don't have to put as much work into it as my other events, just practice a couple per week at school. Other than that, it hurts your arm and shoulder, is hard to prepare for, and after a competition, you realize how much all your practice has gone to waste. And there's always that moment where the proctors uncover the WIDI at a competition and you realize you have no clue how you're gonna write it in time. And its only application to science is writing good instructions that people can follow...I think they should take it out.

[personasaurus rex]

Basically, the only thing I like about WIDI is that I don't have to put as much work into it as my other events, just practice a couple per week at school. Other than that, it hurts your arm and shoulder, is hard to prepare for, and after a competition, you realize how much all your practice has gone to waste. And there's always that moment where the proctors uncover the WIDI at a competition and you realize you have no clue how you're gonna write it in time. And its only application to science is writing good instructions that people can follow...I think they should take it out.

That pretty much sums it up haha. Except unfortunately, my partner and I practice about an hour of WIDI every day after school, and after competitions we realize that we've wasted even more time than you did.

[Gemma W]

But it does apply to science - the most obvious is writing a procedure (scientific method) but also you have to be able to communicate and collaborate with others. And I think that it's fun. Even though it can be extremely frustrating and annoying, it is still interesting to see how other people interpret things and how creative we can be.

[googlyfrog]

I guess. It just feels like no matter how hard you practice, sometimes they just throw something new at you and you fail. Your doesn't reflect how much you've prepared for the event (with study/building events you know if you failed, that you were unprepared). Our team has been fairly good in terms of WIDI at regionals and states, and then at nationals, we didn't do as well as we expected to. We are still a good WIDI team, we just couldn't've prepared for what was coming.

[Phenylethylamine]

with study/building events you know if you failed, that you were unprepared

This isn't necessarily true for study/building events any more than it is for inquiry events. Tests can be poorly written, devices can get jostled and broken, judges can be biased (I'm thinking of Sounds here)... and these can screw you up just as much as a weird material can screw you up in WIDI, and are just as much outside of your control.