Poorly Run Event Stories

[DrewW]

I have no crazy poorly run event stories, but the worst one was at my most recent Invitational tournament where the test was 135 questions total. The test only had easy multiple choice questions mixed in with True/False questions. No calculation questions or short answer questions!

[NewSciolyer]

Every ELG team before us had an average time of 5 seconds. When it was our turn, the proctor was very exasperated and tired at seeing so many teams fail. He was very grumpy and gave short and choppy sentences. After we flew though, his attitude changed completely and he was actually a really nice guy.

[SilverBreeze]

Good intentions with poor results: at one invitational, the proctor made us wash our devices in a wash solution, then test the saline solution. However, with the lack of paper towels, the distilled water we had to wash our device in probably contaminated the solution more than unwashed devices would have. What was most irritating was the lack of paper towels to clean up. This meant saltwater on the desk and tests and salt crystals on the device. Please, no proctor ever do that again.

[Xierr]

I'm a do-er in WIDI, while I was building I noticed a lot of small mistakes (ex. if the object was on the left or right) which is unlike my partner. and when I came out of the event to ask her, she said that the supervisor said that their time mattered (which is incorrect only the do-er's time matters) so she was rushed and did not have time to go over what she wrote. we didn't get a medal but still placed pretty high.
in conclusion, I'm saying that you should know the official rules and don't be afraid to politely speak up.

[Dsrivastava]

My friend told me that the entire WIDI was legos. He said everone pretty much aced it. Oh well.

[EwwPhysics]

At regionals WIDI was sooo easy I did it in 5 minutes (I'm the doer) and I wasn't even the first one done. We got seventh welp, only 3 points less than first place and 1 point less than 2nd.... so many ties.

[CathycatScioly]

At regionals, we were at Density Lab and we were going to do the labs. I was so disappointed in the labs. There was one where they gave you a number of cubes and you had to find the density of them. But they were all the same volume, so all you had to do was find the mass. It was the easiest lab i've ever done. Then, there was a lab where you had to find the number density for skittles which isn't that hard, but the problem was, there wasn't a specific thing that you had to find the number density for. It was so poorly run. And then, the test was all multiple choice which was terrible because it was sooooo easy. welp... smh

[ILIKEBANANAS]

At Southwest Pa Regs. in MV the proctors just WROTE TARGET on the target point instead of putting a dot, and they had no timers, and yes, by the way, we won with 16.2 pts but second place was 50.8pts

[SilverBreeze]

Forensics partner: "Uh, why is the NaOH with powder 2 fizzing?"
Honest mistake by proctors, no one's fault, really, but very memorable. Please test reagents first, as stock solutions are sometimes mislabeled.

Also heard of a crossword puzzle on a Disease Detective test from a teammate's parent, and at a different competition the Forensics proctor was teaching the teams how to run the labs and giving them answers(probably no ill intent, but very frustrating).

[Nooran008]

I just realized this forum existed and I have waaaaayyyyy too many stories from this season.
So, once in Orni, there was this one test that made me want to rip my hair out. Basically, the people running the event would not tell us when they would switch the slides, so me and my friend would be finishing up one station, only to realize that they were halfway through the other one. Also, during a vocab part, THEY DIDN'T NUMBER THE VOCAB ON THE SLIDE, BUT THEY NUMBERED IT ON THE ANSWER SHEET. That was super frustrating, because it ended up being from left to right, then go down to the next layer, but we thought it was going down, and then next list thingy. Also, according to the rules, you are not allowed to take things out of your binder. HOWEVER, THERE WERE TEAMS LITERALLY TAKING OUT THEIR ENTIRE BINDERS while me and my partner were trying to flip insanely fast when we didn't know something. We still somehow got 5th, but were one point off from forth. When we got the test back (bc this was an invy), apparantley my very clear letter D counted as an O, for some stupid reason, even though it was very clearly a D, while the Y team of our team had a ton wrong, which were marked right. This is the longest rant I've ever been on, and I am so mad, I just had to. So, have fun reading my rant about Orni