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jbjbjbjb888 wrote:So my State competition was this past Saturday (full scores came out yesterday), and we found out that the supervisors did not count our 5,000 g bonus, which dropped us from 1st to 12th. Our tower was 21.5 cm square and did not touch the test base inside the 29 cm circle, so we thought we got the bonus. Is there anything I'm missing with these rules in terms of getting the bonus?

Are you sure you didn’t get tiered for something else?

We were still in Tier 1, and the crosses connecting the legs at the bottom were elevated above the test base. I calculated with the score they released that they just counted our load scored/mass of the tower

jbjbjbjb888 wrote:So my State competition was this past Saturday (full scores came out yesterday), and we found out that the supervisors did not count our 5,000 g bonus, which dropped us from 1st to 12th. Our tower was 21.5 cm square and did not touch the test base inside the 29 cm circle, so we thought we got the bonus. Is there anything I'm missing with these rules in terms of getting the bonus?

They are supposed to give you a checklist to sign right after they test your device. That would have said if you did or did not get the bonus. However, they could have messed up while entering the scores into their spreadsheet. I don't know how those would get arbitrated in your state. It's one of the things I hate about Science Olympiad. Sometimes, you just don't know something is wrong until it's too late to do anything about it. And the wort part is, it's all someone else's fault. It's out of your control. Science Olympiad really should do more to protect the students from these kinds of issues. Good grief, they work so hard all year only to have their hopes dashed on the sharp shards of event supervisors mistakes.

jbjbjbjb888 wrote:So my State competition was this past Saturday (full scores came out yesterday), and we found out that the supervisors did not count our 5,000 g bonus, which dropped us from 1st to 12th. Our tower was 21.5 cm square and did not touch the test base inside the 29 cm circle, so we thought we got the bonus. Is there anything I'm missing with these rules in terms of getting the bonus?

Definitely the event supervisor's mistake. If your legs were 21.5cm apart, the tower could span a 30.24 cm diameter circle. So not your

Well dang... does anyone know of a way to appeal to state tournament coordinators or something similar? Or can I maybe just send an email? I want to clear this up and make sure it doesn't happen next year

You and your coach should write a letter of complaint to the person in charge of your State Science Olympiad tournament. They can make sure this event official doesn't get to run that event next year.

jbjbjbjb888 wrote:Well dang... does anyone know of a way to appeal to state tournament coordinators or something similar? Or can I maybe just send an email? I want to clear this up and make sure it doesn't happen next year

I doubt you'd be able to appeal this far after the tournament. The best you can do is inform your state director, who theoretically will communicate this to the event supervisor.

In Florida, scores are not official and subject to change within 48 hours of the end of the competition. I am not saying that it would be possible, but if the ES recorded which towers were eligible for the bonus, this could be fixed. Something similar in towers happened in our region and they changed the scores and ranks the day after the competition (which did reorder OVERALL ranks of teams from 1 to 3). Contact your regional and state director to see what might be possible. I am not saying that it will be changed but there is precedent for change after the competition.

You could probably email them but I don't think it will be that helpful...

Anyone have predictions for top 6 at nats?