Pennsylvania 2019

[alchzh]

Astro:

Astro: Great test as always. One math question wasn't great, there was really just the first part that was difficult and obscure, but the actual astro math was pretty easy. Some of the conceptual DSO questions seemed very obscure, but that was probably just poor notes on my parts. Overall, loved the test, it was very hard with many levels of questions to really differentiate teams, 10/10.

Fermi Questions: This was a super generic fermi test without anything strange in the least. Pretty easy and generic stuff as well. Was a bit surprised to see our score, probably got some unlucky high/low guesses. The RGB one was a bit questionable but it was easy enough to see what they wanted.

Dynamic Planet: ohhhhh boy. This test was uh... not great. MC was a bunch of easy note pull and focused a ton on Oxygen and types of till (wtf?). Weird questions include

What is true about isotopes?
a. they have the same number of protons
b. they are different varieties of Oxygen
e. both a and b

in an section about oxygen. The proctors weren't the event writers and were very unhelpful... the term matching section was extremely vague and the ESs didn't tell us how many letters to put down for each one (there were at least 4 sections on the image that were "meltwater"). A bunch of other strange stuff too.

Codebusters: Pretty standard codebusters I think. Nothing too hard or easy. I failed by spending too much time on RSA and somehow messing up but there wasn't anything wrong with the test I think. Having a full hour to do it was a bit weird.

[newt]

Event Reviews:
Game On (3): Fun and the computers didn't lag (10/10)
Meteorology (2): The test was mostly multiple choice and I kind of would have liked to see more difficult topics tested (7/10)
Rollercoaster (8): Rollercoaster was run very well as it usually is. The event supervisors were very nice (9/10)
Herpetology (2): Great variety of topics on the test. Herp was the best way to end my B division experience! (10/10)

Congratulations to everyone who competed at states! I hope you all had fun and learned something new through Scioly

[klastyioer]

lmao ig im doing this vent review thing

my one and only event technically: ws

we placed 3rd so that was cool. the room was rly nice, the usual draft was not very strong that day. i was kinda annoyed that it was gliders and ws in the same place, it was kinda giving me anxiety. i also kinda didnt like how they put ws on the side where the draft is usually strongest... like gliders woulda been better if it was on the ws side but whatever. we did have one complication where you went right for competitors only and left for non competitors, they wouldnt let me bring the table into the competing zone even though i wouldnt talk to my teammates or communicate to them in any form i would just like carry the table there and walk back to the bleachers...... so that issue should probably be resolved. i was glad to see that the 3 minute bonus was back, we didnt have it at SEPA with the same supervisor, but now we do so thats cool. they had multiple timers and es's so that everything was legit and no times were recorded incorrectly or anything like that. the check in process seemed smooth for our team and everything was as expected which was nice to see. i was actually kinda surprised at our times i thought we would get a little lower but we did good and im proud of my team (wow look at me being soft uWu). congrats to bayard rustin for winning pa ws! idk i dont have much to say after that, it was all pretty good and nothing went wrong besides that complication.

(times edit)

[roadscholar11]

Tentative C Division Scores:
1. Harriton (81)
2. Rustin (109)
3. Lower Merion (112)
4. Cumberland Valley (143)
5. Shady Side (180)
6. Penncrest (190)
7. Conestoga (205)
8. Garnet Valley (301)
9. State College Area (338)
10. Parkland (342)

[CrayolaCrayon]

Astronomy (3): As always, a VERY well written test that had a very good DSO section. You had to really know your stuff to do well on that test; congrats to LM for taking 1st.

Wright Stuff (1): Dr. Drummer always has done an amazing job running this event since I was in middle school. He is a fabulous event supervisor, and everyone at the judging table was incredibly nice. They were fair, and very respectful of the devices. It was set up to account for the drift in the Juniata Fieldhouse (from West to East), so in the case a plane was up long enough and drifted over to the East, they would stop launching gliders to avoid any messy issues. All rules were followed to the letter. A really great job done by everyone there.

[klastyioer]

east when are you going to reveal prediction winners?

[EastStroudsburg13]

east when are you going to reveal prediction winners?

Not the day after states, that's for sure.

[klastyioer]

east when are you going to reveal prediction winners?

Not the day after states, that's for sure.

lol ok

[GoldenKnight1]

Codebusters (5th): Wow. Just, wow. I have to really commend my partners here, they've worked their butts off since regionals to get better at code. In fact, we did better here than we did at regionals (6th at regionals -> 5th at states). It also wasn't until states that we first tried doing the timed question together. We were the 2nd or 3rd to finish in our timeslot I think, with a time of 5:43. Our biggest weakness at regionals was that we were extremely weak on aristocrats, and my partners worked on that since regionals to solve every aristocrat at states except for two (or one?) of them. However, none of us attempted any of the patristocrats, I tried the xenocrypts but I was unable to solve them, and I was unable to solve any of the Baconians or the RSAs (except for the which numbers do you need and what's the formula for rsa lmao). I also forgot how to do hill in the middle of while I was doing it, and running key i think i messed it up. Aside from those, we pretty much did all of the questions, and that's what led to our 5th place. I'm really proud of my partners for studying their butts off for this since regionals. (funnily enough, my one partner and i took a practice test the night before and our score wasn't even half of what it was at states lol). Interesting how they gave us 58 minutes to do the test though. Overall, well run event, rating 9/10.

7 teams got the bonus and you were the 2nd fastest. In the overall scores only 1 team beat you that did not get the time bonus. Is there a reason you found it interesting to get 58 minutes in a 60 minute time block when my directions took 2 minutes? Not having been in the other events I am not sure what you saw other places. Would you have preferred it to be different?

[Riptide]

Codebusters (5th): Wow. Just, wow. I have to really commend my partners here, they've worked their butts off since regionals to get better at code. In fact, we did better here than we did at regionals (6th at regionals -> 5th at states). It also wasn't until states that we first tried doing the timed question together. We were the 2nd or 3rd to finish in our timeslot I think, with a time of 5:43. Our biggest weakness at regionals was that we were extremely weak on aristocrats, and my partners worked on that since regionals to solve every aristocrat at states except for two (or one?) of them. However, none of us attempted any of the patristocrats, I tried the xenocrypts but I was unable to solve them, and I was unable to solve any of the Baconians or the RSAs (except for the which numbers do you need and what's the formula for rsa lmao). I also forgot how to do hill in the middle of while I was doing it, and running key i think i messed it up. Aside from those, we pretty much did all of the questions, and that's what led to our 5th place. I'm really proud of my partners for studying their butts off for this since regionals. (funnily enough, my one partner and i took a practice test the night before and our score wasn't even half of what it was at states lol). Interesting how they gave us 58 minutes to do the test though. Overall, well run event, rating 9/10.

7 teams got the bonus and you were the 2nd fastest. In the overall scores only 1 team beat you that did not get the time bonus. Is there a reason you found it interesting to get 58 minutes in a 60 minute time block when my directions took 2 minutes? Not having been in the other events I am not sure what you saw other places. Would you have preferred it to be different?

I'm not from PA so I don't know if things run differently there or something but I'm pretty sure the standard is to run test events for 50 minutes (in the rules the approximate time is stated to be 50 minutes for basically every non build). Whenever tournaments run in 60 minute blocks, I generally see the extra 10 minutes being used to get everyone situated into seats, explaining rules, and as extra time to get to your next event.