Poorly Run Event Stories

[TheChiScientist]

That way the ES ran it from my understanding is that they could have prevented this but failed to do so by not following the rules.

[Skink]

Thinking it over, I wonder if Thermo doesn't actually involve any more supervisory mistakes than many other laboratory events do, just that they stick out in our minds while it's in rotation. More goofs are probably made with CB and 4N6 in a season than Thermo. And, any damage there is more costly to teams because the entire event is one big activity, whereas Thermo is split down the middle. Even if the box testing is a wash, the test is still there (or vice versa). Plus, Thermo is generally one of the harder events to supervise well (so I think it's fair to give some allowance to folks who legitimately try).

[knottingpurple]

Thinking it over, I wonder if Thermo doesn't actually involve any more supervisory mistakes than many other laboratory events do, just that they stick out in our minds while it's in rotation. More goofs are probably made with CB and 4N6 in a season than Thermo. And, any damage there is more costly to teams because the entire event is one big activity, whereas Thermo is split down the middle. Even if the box testing is a wash, the test is still there (or vice versa). Plus, Thermo is generally one of the harder events to supervise well (so I think it's fair to give some allowance to folks who legitimately try).

ESes taking binders away is a new one, though - there are lots of binder events that all have that rule and it's surprising somebody would interpret it that way.

[TheCowboyandhisArk]

Division B- Rocks and minerals at Michigan state Tournament last weekend, Supervisor went to the wrong room and the whole event slot had to be rescheduled. The coach was everywhere.

[bluebird11]

Regionals last year, when Electric Vehicle was still around, the proctor set up the track with no end point or line (???) and when I asked how long the track was they said "about 30 feet". So I ran it and all the proctors clapped once it passed the last set of photogates.... I think they thought it was something like a race? Fastest time wins? I have no idea. They also let our other team run 3 times.

Electric Vehicle at state the same year- they didn't provide a start or end point, and gave us meter-long pieces of tape instead. The problem was there was a can bonus where you would try and fit through the smallest gap between the cans, and without a point of reference to start or end with, there was really no way to set up the cans.

Generally I've found that vehicle events always have something set up incorrectly. T_T

[dxu46]

MO state:

Overall, my events were run really well, but I have to find some stuff to pick on.In Experimental Design, the write-up pages provided were front and back, which meant that it was almost impossible for us to work efficiently. This meant that while my partners were working, I couldn't work, and while I was working, they had nothing to do. This led to me finishing the last part with a few seconds remaining. Also, the event supervisors didn't let us take off our goggles when we finished our experiment, but hey, that's kind of expected. Although this was the worst of my events, I would still give it a 7/10.

Thermodynamics, as I heard from a friend, on the other hand, was very poorly run. The test was alright, as I heard, maybe a bit too easy and no tiebreakers, but the way they ran the builds was very bad. First of all, the starting temperatures were different, skewing the results. Second, they didn't time it, basing it off of an honor system, which many teams could abuse. This led to the event being thrown out of grade calculations, which may have impacted many teams (including ours) in the final rankings.

[kate!]

MO state:

Overall, my events were run really well, but I have to find some stuff to pick on.In Experimental Design, the write-up pages provided were front and back, which meant that it was almost impossible for us to work efficiently. This meant that while my partners were working, I couldn't work, and while I was working, they had nothing to do. This led to me finishing the last part with a few seconds remaining. Also, the event supervisors didn't let us take off our goggles when we finished our experiment, but hey, that's kind of expected. Although this was the worst of my events, I would still give it a 7/10.

Thermodynamics, as I heard from a friend, on the other hand, was very poorly run. The test was alright, as I heard, maybe a bit too easy and no tiebreakers, but the way they ran the builds was very bad. First of all, the starting temperatures were different, skewing the results. Second, they didn't time it, basing it off of an honor system, which many teams could abuse. This led to the event being thrown out of grade calculations, which may have impacted many teams (including ours) in the final rankings.

That same experimental design problem happened at my invitational. The statistics and analysis were on the same page, so I could only finish half of the analysis before my team member had to do the statistics. Luckily at states, there was blank lined paper provided... I was so relieved.

[knightmoves]

That same experimental design problem happened at my invitational. The statistics and analysis were on the same page, so I could only finish half of the analysis before my team member had to do the statistics. Luckily at states, there was blank lined paper provided... I was so relieved.

Mmmm.

All these different ways of presenting answer sheets (single-sided booklet, double-sided booklet, stack of blank paper,...) are legitimate things for an ES to do. The fact that your preferred way of splitting the workload doesn't work well with some of them is interesting, but I don't think makes it either unfair or poorly-designed.

[meierfra]

Mmmm.

All these different ways of presenting answer sheets (single-sided booklet, double-sided booklet, stack of blank paper,...) are legitimate things for an ES to do. The fact that your preferred way of splitting the workload doesn't work well with some of them is interesting, but I don't think makes it either unfair or poorly-designed.

I disagree. At our regional tournament, each team is given a laptop and a sheet of graph paper. So only one person can be writing (other than the graph) at any one time. Why would the event have teams of 3 if they didn't expect 2 people to be writing simultaneously? It doesn't take 2 people working the entire hour to do the experiment.

[antoine_ego]

Mmmm.

All these different ways of presenting answer sheets (single-sided booklet, double-sided booklet, stack of blank paper,...) are legitimate things for an ES to do. The fact that your preferred way of splitting the workload doesn't work well with some of them is interesting, but I don't think makes it either unfair or poorly-designed.

I disagree. At our regional tournament, each team is given a laptop and a sheet of graph paper. So only one person can be writing (other than the graph) at any one time. Why would the event have teams of 3 if they didn't expect 2 people to be writing simultaneously? It doesn't take 2 people working the entire hour to do the experiment.

So long as it's equally annoying to all teams, it's fair. There's nothing within the rules specifying the nature of the answer sheets - that's left to the interpretation of the ES. It's certainly suboptimal, but it may be intended to force teams to spend more time on the experiment portion instead of writing, thus decreasing the likelihood of a team basically skipping the experiment.