National Test Discussion

[windu34]

Electric Vehicle (2) - Extremely well run as always. The supervisors were very clear and concise on giving instructions and I especially appreciated the clarity of the exact placement of the target point on the tape (commonly left ambiguous at competitions). Not much to say other than that it was perfectly run. 10/10
Hovercraft (20) - Build portion in my experience was very well run. Impound was thorough and accurate. Vehicle testing was run well in my experience, but I didn't attempt to check if the track was level so I cannot speak on behalf of those comments. Supervisor was clear and straightforward about stopping and starting. The written test was alright. While I felt the difficulty level was definitely present, it was not dispersed over each topic. Kinematics and Newton's laws were easy and straightforward while topics such as fluids were much more difficult. Overall 8/10
Invasive Species (5) - As stated above, the test was very easy and the time constraint was the only factor that attempted to separate teams. I was quite disappointed in the quality of the test in that in failed to test genuine and thorough knowledge as well as the ability to critically think about a problem. Instead, the test was extremely biased towards those with the scientific names memorized (thankfully my partner and I) and I found this to be deviating from the true goal of this event, which is supposedly to test the competitors understanding of invasion ecology in specific species. The straight identification stations were nice in that it tested whether or not teams could distinguish between similar looking species without extensive use of a written dichotomous key and/or identification sheet. Overall 6/10
Remote Sensing (12) - This test was very well written and thoroughly tested the ability of the competitors to not only critically think but also manage their time. Only complaint lies within the energy balance section, where the units and instructions were very ambiguous and multiple teams (including myself) had to repeatedly question the proctor about the intent of the questions. The supervisor was genuinely interested in how the competitors received the test and actively looked for criticism/feedback which is something I found very satisfying. Overall 9/10
Robot Arm (7) - Everything was very well-run as expected and I have no complaints as far as how the supervisor conducted the event. In terms of the actual competition surface, I am conflicted. While I understand my device should be capable of performing on any given surface, that just isn't the case. The hardened (cemented?) surface caused the pennies being dispensed from my XY table to bounce considerably resulting in large losses in accuracy. Additionally, the target provided has smaller radii due to the supervisor's decision to make the thick lines outling the rings count for the lower ring. While run well, I would have liked to have seen targets similar to those made available to all teams on the national website. Overall 8/10
Wind Power (11) - Very well run. Test was well-written, Device testing was well-run. No other comments. 10/10

Overall I felt this tournament was not run as well as last year. In addition to the things listed above by varuncs, the awards were not quite as exciting. The music played between events and top 6 places helped keep a lively atmosphere which is something I felt was slightly lacking this year. Keynote speaker was not well chosen for the given audience IMO. 7/10

[RestingDoll]

Widi (15) - Fairly standard build, but it was pretty much what I expected. The one metal piece(honestly not sure what it was) on the one side was difficult.

Hovercraft (30) - Oh boy. Test was pretty difficult, with a variety of questions. Expected more fluids (viscosity, pipe flow), but the ones provided (hydrostatics, pressure) were extremely difficult. Also interesting to note: I'm certain that you needed calculus if you didn't have prederived formulas. The build portion itself was also well run, impound was good and ES were very nice. By shear magic or humidity or scale differences, we went from 2000.0g to 2000.6g. RIP 50 points, but lesson learned, play it on the safe side.

[KoolKalvin]

I think knowing what a spot map was boosted my partner and I from maybe 10th to 3rd. That was fairly obscure for such an easy test.

That's not very obscure, it's like the first page of Principles of Epi

Yeah, and there's also John Snow. If you know remotely anything about John Snow's 2nd cholera investigation, you should be able to know spot maps.

That's true, but those types of questions don't show up much on nationals tests.

[efeng]

That's not very obscure, it's like the first page of Principles of Epi

Yeah, and there's also John Snow. If you know remotely anything about John Snow's 2nd cholera investigation, you should be able to know spot maps.

That's true, but those types of questions don't show up much on nationals tests.

Yeah; I've never seen a trivia question on a nationals disease test.

[The48thYoshi]

Yeah, and there's also John Snow. If you know remotely anything about John Snow's 2nd cholera investigation, you should be able to know spot maps.

That's true, but those types of questions don't show up much on nationals tests.

Yeah; I've never seen a trivia question on a nationals disease test.

I believe they asked about spot maps on 2012 at UCF?

[lastTime]

This was my first and last nationals, being a senior. I think it went decently.

Remote Sensing (36): This one was what my partner and I considered to be our worst event, and it showed. Despite 6th at MIT, this one went badly, and we probably left 75% of it blank. Wasn't a big priority for us, but I suppose it was a good test. ES was nice. (7/10)

Ecology (19): This one we thought to be quite easy, which meant that we knew that we probably wouldn't medal. Still, top 20 isn't too bad, but I was surprised by LASA getting 41st. That's absolutely wild. Considering they won MIT and we were 38th there. Some of the stations were so easy we finished in 30 seconds, others were less so, but still, a manageable, if too easy test. I would be interested to see the raw scores and the difference in between them. (5/10)

Dynamic Planet: (14) We did quite well in this one, top 15-20 was what I was aiming for all of my events. Perhaps if I had paid more attention to who the ES was and what she did, we might have known to study all the geophysics stuff, and could've potentially gotten top 10? We had minimal info on all the anomalies, and we did think that there was way too much of that and not the other stuff. (7/10)


Hydrogeology: (7) We were so, so close. This one hurt, a lot. Relatively good stuff, we knew most of it, but Hydro can go either way b/c it's so simple. 1st at UPenn somehow for us. I would like to see the raw scores here too. Disappointing not to medal, as this was going to be the one if any, and considering this is my last year of SO. (7/10).

Overall, decent tournament, though I don't have any standard of comparison. The dorm apartments where we were was ok, swap meet was a bit too chaotic for my liking, and the keynote speaker was very, very, very boring. But, we did ok, considering this was our first time to Nationals in 6 or so years. 7th is quite gutting, however.

[Tailsfan101]

Hydrogeology: (7)

Ouch! I feel so sorry for you, lastTime! My team's best finish was 16th in Disease Detectives. (Which me and Nerd_Bunny competed in )

The dorm apartments where we were was ok, swap meet was a bit too chaotic for my liking, and the keynote speaker was very, very, very boring.

+1, +1, (I described it as hectic mayhem) and +∞∞∞∞∞∞infinity! (I was backstage at the time, I was doing the student pledge! )

[efeng]

How did everybody else think of the Disease Detectives test? (both Divisions)

[Unome]

How did everybody else think of the Disease Detectives test? (both Divisions)

Agree that it seemed a bit too short, though the questions themselves were mostly pretty good. Were there even any math calculations at all? I recall several on past tests (e.g. 2012).

[efeng]

How did everybody else think of the Disease Detectives test? (both Divisions)

Agree that it seemed a bit too short, though the questions themselves were mostly pretty good. Were there even any math calculations at all? I recall several on past tests (e.g. 2012).

I think that they might have not finished making the second part of the test, because it was way shorter than the first section, and there was no math.