Poorly Run Event Stories

[pb5754]

Thermodynamics: Split us into two groups to get hot water. One group was closer to the water bank so their temperature of water was hotter to begin with. Whereas we had to sprint across the room with hot water.

What competition was this?

[dxu46]

Mo region 3 in a nutshell

Bottle rocket: it was an a roof that was around 5 meters wide and if it didnt hit the roof it counted as a broken egg

Food science: was cancelled

Microbe mission: had 0 microscopes. MICROBE mission

Optics: the test was short and there was no lazers so it was just a test

Road scolor: the map couldnt even fit on the table and was the wrong map so we only got the non map questions right

Another MO user! Are you from Pembroke Hill?

[ElPotato]

I once took this Crave the Wave test that was pretty much just one sheet, front and back. The questions were also pretty easy. As a result, everyone finished in about 10 to 15 minutes. Some teams turned in their tests early, but my partner and I decided to stay and just check our work a bunch of times. Suddenly, about 30 min. into the test, the event supervisor stand up and says "Time taken during the test is now a tie-breaker." Not had half of teams already turned in their tests before they started recording the time taken during the test, but having time as a tie-breaker was in direct violation of the rules, which state that time is the one thing that cannot be used as a tiebreaker. Nonetheless, I immediantly got up and turned in our test, and within a minute so had everyone else. After the event, the supervisor probally had a nice chat with some of the coaches. In the end, I got first in the event, but only becuase I won the arbitrary tie-breaker with second by 0.000001 points, since both of us had aced the test.


TL;DR: The solution to your test being too easy is just to break the rules.

[Otkrlj]

Mo region 3 in a nutshell

Bottle rocket: it was an a roof that was around 5 meters wide and if it didnt hit the roof it counted as a broken egg

Food science: was cancelled

Microbe mission: had 0 microscopes. MICROBE mission

Optics: the test was short and there was no lazers so it was just a test

Road scolor: the map couldnt even fit on the table and was the wrong map so we only got the non map questions right

Another MO user! Are you from Pembroke Hill?

Nope

[dxu46]

Regionals today, only one complaint, and it is a biggie.

Remember that post I made a few pages back?

At our regional competition, Rocks and Minerals (a timed station event) had stations that weren't timed. There were 50 minutes for 10+ stations, so we finished 20 minutes early and left. Also, there was an error in the test. It listed "hornblende" as a metamorphic rock, when in reality it is a mineral. We asked the ES, and she said it should have been "hornfels," a metamorphic rock ( ). So that question was exempted for all participants.

All that was true above was true today. Even the error. Yes. The test was the same as last year.
Overall, 0.5/10 because the one saving grace (can I call it that?) was that the specimens were okay. My partner and I wasted time by making Conglomerate and Breccia shout insults at each other and fighting .

A message to all event supervisors: Don't procrastinate making the tests.

[PM2017]

Astro test at my invitationals today was the worst test I've ever seen

I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll go in order of the problem as they appeared

Firstly they passed out image sheets. I was very confused since the numbering wasn't in order, had DSOs from previous years, like AB Aur, and HL Tau (!!!!!!), and they literally had team notes on those DSOs to the right of the images. I knew right away that something was severely off.

Then, the proctor gave a whole lecture about how this is meant to prepare us for states and continued to explain to us (in-depth somehow) all the rules about binders and laptops (which we already knew), and then passed out the tests.

The first thing I noticed was that the title was "Astronomy [Name of Invitational] Invitational 2017," with the 7 crossed out and replaced with an eight. (this may have just been a typo as the date was indeed January 27).

At the bottom of the cover page, where they explain rules it said the answers may be found at some 2016 AAVSO site.

I opened the test and was dismayed to find that it asked about the DSOs from previous years... Until I realized that literally every one of the answers was given on the notes on the flip side of the image sheet.

My normal partner was unable to attend the competition, so I told her substitute to just copy all the answers from the image sheet, which he did, while I took the rest of the test. All of the rest of it was multiple choice, and many questions were easy, while some were worded awkwardly worded, and some were plain unanswerable (one of them asked about what type of star we can infer Messier 67 to be, using a color-color diagram. For anyone who isn't familiar with astro, M67 is literally a star cluster, so it can't be a single type of star..., none of the choices reflected this)

Then, there were only three calculations on the whole test. (that I remember, there may have been 1-2 more) the first was a basic parallax question, where they gave us a distance of 20 pc, and we had to find parallax (for those who don't know, it's simply d=1/p). The second one was a question asking in parsecs and light years, which of the following is the distance to a star that moves an angle of 0.05" over the course of a year (they might have had the more accurate six months, but I don't remember.) Firstly, they tried to trick people into doing d = 1/0.05, but they actually gave the entire angle, not the parallax, so we had to divide by 2 first. this would have gotten me had the answer for 20 parsecs been paired up with 65.2 ly. Instead, the only option with 20 pc was 177 ly. Then, instead of solving to get 40 pc, I was able to find the answer simply by seeing which of the pairs had the correct ratio between pc and ly (and then I verified by using d =1/0.025)

The last calculation was the worst. It was a basic redshift question and gave us an observed wavelength of 500.0 nm, and an emitted of 344.2 nm. I solved using v = c(obs-emitted)/emited (which I've since verified to be correct) and none of the answers matched up. So I thought, this test has been bad thus far, maybe they replaced it with the frequency version of the equation. (which involves a frequency observed in the denominator, instead of a frequency emitted.) Sure enough, when I did 3.00e8((500-344.2)/500), I got an answer which was one of the choices.

to recap
1.last years tet?
2.proctor lecturing on basic rules
3.last year (and before) DSOs
4.ANSWERS PROVIDED ON IMAGE SHEET
5.Multiple Choice
6.Only non-parallax calculation question messed up with their calculations

I ended up with fifth since my usual partner wasn't there.

This was probably the result of poor planning, procrastination, and many other avoidable things.

Like the Post above me says, a message to all proctors:
NEVER PROCRASTINATE ON MAKING THE TEST. Not only does it insult and waste the time of teams that put so much effort into the event, it also reflects poorly on your school. I won't be able to give any credibility to a test from this school again, at least not for some time.

[PM2017]

Regionals today, only one complaint, and it is a biggie.

Remember that post I made a few pages back?

At our regional competition, Rocks and Minerals (a timed station event) had stations that weren't timed. There were 50 minutes for 10+ stations, so we finished 20 minutes early and left. Also, there was an error in the test. It listed "hornblende" as a metamorphic rock, when in reality it is a mineral. We asked the ES, and she said it should have been "hornfels," a metamorphic rock ( ). So that question was exempted for all participants.

All that was true above was true today. Even the error. Yes. The test was the same as last year.
Overall, 0.5/10 because the one saving grace (can I call it that?) was that the specimens were okay. My partner and I wasted time by making Conglomerate and Breccia shout insults at each other and fighting .

A message to all event supervisors: Don't procrastinate making the tests.

Did the placements differ much between the two years?

[dxu46]

Regionals today, only one complaint, and it is a biggie.

Remember that post I made a few pages back?

At our regional competition, Rocks and Minerals (a timed station event) had stations that weren't timed. There were 50 minutes for 10+ stations, so we finished 20 minutes early and left. Also, there was an error in the test. It listed "hornblende" as a metamorphic rock, when in reality it is a mineral. We asked the ES, and she said it should have been "hornfels," a metamorphic rock ( ). So that question was exempted for all participants.

All that was true above was true today. Even the error. Yes. The test was the same as last year.
Overall, 0.5/10 because the one saving grace (can I call it that?) was that the specimens were okay. My partner and I wasted time by making Conglomerate and Breccia shout insults at each other and fighting .

A message to all event supervisors: Don't procrastinate making the tests.

Did the placements differ much between the two years?

I won both (I mean, really, if I didn't get above or at the same score as last year...). I honestly think the ES was too lazy to grade our tests and copied the results from last year to send over.

[pb5754]

Years in Division B: 1
Years in Division C: 3
College I'll be attending: Penn State University Park
Major, School and/or program (if known): Aerospace Engineering
Also accepted to: Virginia Tech, University of Pittsburgh
Wait listed at: Boring with applications
Rejected by: none

wrong forum

[Killboe]

Florida invitational last year a bunch of people got some sort of foodborne illness from the steak people were taken to the hospital, great studying for me considering I was in disease detectives