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Re: Pennsylvania 2014
Posted: May 6th, 2014, 6:05 pm
by kamikaziH2Omln
I second that notion. Rumors have definitely have been circulating about the competition as a whole, but ED in particular has heard some outcry. Having some information on that event in particular, whether it be tiering or another factor, would bring some closure on what was definitely a heated competition!
Congrats to all the participants!
Re: Pennsylvania 2014
Posted: May 6th, 2014, 6:27 pm
by earthbot25
scramblingman wrote:
Personally I'm very disappointed for the way experimental design turned out. My group and I practiced very hard for this event, as I'm sure the teams of many other schools did. The scores for this event are purely based on the rubric, and even though my group knew exactly what we were doing and followed the rubric to the fine print, we, like many of the top teams (Harriton, Rustin, Conestoga) got placed above 25th. It makes absolutely no sense, and I would really like to be given some kind of explanation as to why this happened. I know it also screwed many other teams over, meaning something probably went wrong with the overall grading. I really hope there is some kind of closure for this, so all of the teams that thought they did well know what went wrong.
kamikaziH2Omln wrote:I second that notion. Rumors have definitely have been circulating about the competition as a whole, but ED in particular has heard some outcry. Having some information on that event in particular, whether it be tiering or another factor, would bring some closure on what was definitely a heated competition!
Congrats to all the participants!
I too wish for closure in this year's experimental Design, especially since the feedback would be helpful, but I fear it's probably too late. From what I heard back the tests have already been discarded, and obviously there will not be alteration of overall scores.
Perhaps what would be most useful at this point, would be if one of the winning teams in experimental design (Quaker Valley, Elizabethtown, Penncrest, Strath Haven, Fleetwood) could illuminate us on what kind of lab write up did do well, seeing as following the rubric to the tee resulted in places in the 20's.
Re: Pennsylvania 2014
Posted: May 6th, 2014, 7:02 pm
by EastStroudsburg13
Since the final placings in C have changed, I've changed the results for predictions. The average dropped to 21.4, mainly because everyone who picked Harriton now got 3 points instead of 5. The top name, however, remains the same.
1. AlphaTauri - 30 points
2. syo_astro - 27 points
3. shms_princess - 26 points
4. nejanimb - 26 points
5. EastStroudsburg13 - 26 points
6. Atomicbob11 - 26 points
7. 49ers - 25 points
8. jonpao523 - 25 points
Re: Pennsylvania 2014
Posted: May 7th, 2014, 8:28 am
by 28
kamikaziH2Omln wrote:I second that notion. Rumors have definitely have been circulating about the competition as a whole, but ED in particular has heard some outcry. Having some information on that event in particular, whether it be tiering or another factor, would bring some closure on what was definitely a heated competition!
Congrats to all the participants!
My personal experience with experimental design has been that is generally a highly variable event. Its harder to study for than most other events and often times the scoring can be subjective. I don't have specific statistics on how it compares to other events and overall placing across several competitions/years, but maybe AlphaTauri has that information readily available... If not, I might go ahead and calculate it some time in the next few days.
Re: Pennsylvania 2014
Posted: May 7th, 2014, 9:45 am
by kamikaziH2Omln
28 wrote:kamikaziH2Omln wrote:I second that notion. Rumors have definitely have been circulating about the competition as a whole, but ED in particular has heard some outcry. Having some information on that event in particular, whether it be tiering or another factor, would bring some closure on what was definitely a heated competition!
Congrats to all the participants!
My personal experience with experimental design has been that is generally a highly variable event. Its harder to study for than most other events and often times the scoring can be subjective. I don't have specific statistics on how it compares to other events and overall placing across several competitions/years, but maybe AlphaTauri has that information readily available... If not, I might go ahead and calculate it some time in the next few days.
True stuff. Nevertheless, the score margin will definitely leave something to be talking about, far after the fact.
Regardless, best of luck to the teams representing PA! We got two formidable foes that the rest of the country better be prepared for!
Re: Pennsylvania 2014
Posted: May 7th, 2014, 10:28 am
by AlphaTauri
28 wrote:kamikaziH2Omln wrote:I second that notion. Rumors have definitely have been circulating about the competition as a whole, but ED in particular has heard some outcry. Having some information on that event in particular, whether it be tiering or another factor, would bring some closure on what was definitely a heated competition!
Congrats to all the participants!
My personal experience with experimental design has been that is generally a highly variable event. Its harder to study for than most other events and often times the scoring can be subjective. I don't have specific statistics on how it compares to other events and overall placing across several competitions/years, but maybe AlphaTauri has that information readily available... If not, I might go ahead and calculate it some time in the next few days.
I have State results back to 2008 (Div C only); I can link it through dropbox once I get home to my laptop. The data is all laid out in a nice spreadsheet, so it won't be hard to run your own analyses as you wish.
As for ExpDes: I talked to our ExpDes people again, and they said that their materials were literally a piece of paper, a small chunk/piece of metal, and some string. To be honest, if given those things and told to make a physics experiment involving gravity, I would immediately think "ooh, pendulums!" and the only other thing I can think of is air resistance with parachutes... so imho it probably wasn't the best idea to ban pendulums, especially 10 minutes into the event when teams had already gotten a good start on their experiments.
Edit:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8ujqg2yjuhnsl ... ation.xlsx
Re: Pennsylvania 2014
Posted: May 7th, 2014, 3:37 pm
by XJcwolfyX
I mean, gravity doesn't affect a pendulum in any way. When doing a pendulum experiment, the most natural experiment would be to measure the period. The only factors that affect the period are the length of the string and the angle released at, neither of which involve gravity.
Re: Pennsylvania 2014
Posted: May 7th, 2014, 3:46 pm
by syo_astro
XJcwolfyX wrote:I mean, gravity doesn't affect a pendulum in any way. When doing a pendulum experiment, the most natural experiment would be to measure the period. The only factors that affect the period are the length of the string and the angle released at, neither of which involve gravity.
Uh...the period is affected by gravity...the formula for period of a simple pendulum (just to be specific, not some sort of torsion pendulum or something) is T=2pi*sqrt(l/g). g is a gravitational constant near the surface of the Earth stemming from well...gravity. It's different on different planets, moons, etc. Even so, if it's an experiment involving gravity, you could find the other aspects and then I guess find g that way? Unless I'm just confused about the experiment...whatever.
Re: Pennsylvania 2014
Posted: May 7th, 2014, 5:11 pm
by XJcwolfyX
Yes, pendulums are affected by the gravity (earth), length, and angle. I stated my last post poorly, I meant that in an experiment in which you only change the string length or the angle, gravity is not directly involved in the experiment because it is a constant variable. To be honest it was not a good idea to say to do an experiment involving gravity, since gravity is a constant throughout the planet and would not be able to be manipulated. If they meant to just have an experiment with gravity in it, then basically any experiment with a falling mass would work, including the pendulum. But I'm not sure this is what they were thinking or not (who knows what they were).
Re: Pennsylvania 2014
Posted: May 7th, 2014, 7:40 pm
by ak12
Does anyone know what happened with Write It Do It in the B Division? It seems to me as though all the top teams did very poorly in that topic. None of the top 5 teams in WIDI got over 350 points overall. I know this may be possible, but it seems unlikely that all the top teams would do so poorly in it. An 18th was quite disappointing for us. In addition, my partner told me that the materials were stacked on top of another before they were given and some pieces fell off, so not everyone got all the pieces...