Events 2016-2017

[samlan16]

It's near the end of the season, so I"m going to put out my usual offer regarding the rules. We're always interested in hearing feedback / suggestions on changes to make next year. The day after the National Tournament the rules committee will meet to try to lock down the rules for the next season. While I can't guarantee we'll adopt suggestions made here, I can at least promise we'll listen to them and consider them.

Food Science: Please keep it dairy. Everyone has already adapted for this rotation's dairy experiments, and to switch to baking would be hard on both the event proctors, team coaches, and students.

Actually, no dairy. The event has been a logistical nightmare because it is so hard to clean up afterwards.

Additionally, baking would provide teams with a new challenge and would prevent tough competition. As you said, everyone knows the labs and is good at them, meaning it would be hard for you to medal, since you would have to be very precise to do so. Changing an event is not hard for coaches or proctors- we simply modify our lesson plans and test materials.

[syo_astro]

Actually, no dairy. The event has been a logistical nightmare because it is so hard to clean up afterwards.

Additionally, baking would provide teams with a new challenge and would prevent tough competition. As you said, everyone knows the labs and is good at them, meaning it would be hard for you to medal, since you would have to be very precise to do so. Changing an event is not hard for coaches or proctors- we simply modify our lesson plans and test materials.

Agreed, I'd say topic switches/event switches are more probable to happen regardless of advice unless there's a very very strong reason not to switch/someone submits totally different rules that everyone agrees is better. The likelihood of that happening is little...but still possible. In general topic switches are one of the best parts of scioly because it means fewer teams can dominate and more fun learning new stuff .

On that note, if you are trying to recommend changes to events, I recommend being very specific (eg. last year everyone was a annoyed with the It's About Time test rules, so I wrote up a draft outline about the test...don't know if it helped test writers, but hey it was concrete action). If you really wanted no dairy, I think it would have to be such that some significant changes still happen to the event, but I figure you'd have to change all the experiments and stuff anyway, which would be harder to figure out than just changing the topic.

[Magikarpmaster629]

Agreed, I'd say topic switches/event switches are more probable to happen regardless of advice unless there's a very very strong reason not to

On that note, what do you expect the Astronomy topic to be next year?

[syo_astro]

I know that's a question I've heard on chat from someone else...I don't know if I can answer that quite yet, I figure I'll wait for either Tad to post about it or maybe after nats what with things like SSSS. Nats for some is more pressing to think about anyway, right .

I would like to also comment you mentioned nebulae as a topic. There are many types of nebulae, I find it a bit tough to make a full topic unlike x about stars or y about galaxies or z about cosmology. I myself would find ISM/nebula to be a neat topic, but I think nebulae at least are already well-covered, no? I mean SNRs are in the SNe topics, PNe are in the Type Ia SNe topic (I guess "low-mass stellar deaths"), star forming regions are in this/last year's star+planet formation topic, etc. Also, it would be kind of hard to make a doable test about that because the topic would be either too specific (covering physics/chemistry most people couldn't learn) or more likely way too broad (as ISM+nebulae are just about everywhere), and I bet some people already probably complain tests in astro can be too easy/hard >.>. I'd imagine it would be more of an extra thing that could be interesting, though. Cool idea nonetheless.

[Fanglin]

I had heard a rumor that Road Scholar was supposed to be on its way out, something to do with the limited availability of topographic maps now - since they're all digitally available, there's no longer a need for warehousing hard copies. I know it's a "fan favorite" though.

As of right now, Road Scholar is planned to continue for several years.

My coach just prints 1:1 copies of maps on 8.5x11, and then just tapes the pages together. I think you might have to buy an online copy to do this, but it works.

[Unome]

It's near the end of the season, so I"m going to put out my usual offer regarding the rules. We're always interested in hearing feedback / suggestions on changes to make next year. The day after the National Tournament the rules committee will meet to try to lock down the rules for the next season. While I can't guarantee we'll adopt suggestions made here, I can at least promise we'll listen to them and consider them.

Road Scholar - Please provide rules and guidelines for facilitator/event organizer to provide room with tables large enough for individual team to open and view maps. A class room with individual small desks is hard for team to work together and have any surface area to open the map

This will be chalker's response:

Keep in mind there are something like 300 regional tournaments that will be held this year, every one run by a different event supervisor. Not all event supervisors will be this diligent to details, nor have the resources they need available.

[chalker]

It's near the end of the season, so I"m going to put out my usual offer regarding the rules. We're always interested in hearing feedback / suggestions on changes to make next year. The day after the National Tournament the rules committee will meet to try to lock down the rules for the next season. While I can't guarantee we'll adopt suggestions made here, I can at least promise we'll listen to them and consider them.

Road Scholar - Please provide rules and guidelines for facilitator/event organizer to provide room with tables large enough for individual team to open and view maps. A class room with individual small desks is hard for team to work together and have any surface area to open the map

This will be chalker's response:

Keep in mind there are something like 300 regional tournaments that will be held this year, every one run by a different event supervisor. Not all event supervisors will be this diligent to details, nor have the resources they need available.

Seeing this nearly brought tears of joy to my eyes since you were able to pull out one of my common statements as a quote... Until I realized that I actually have a better specific answer. We publish each year on the National website an 'Event logistics chart', which provides guidelines for event supervisors for each event. And for Road Scholar recommended room type, we currently state: "Large classroom with flat tables".

[calvin102111]

Does anyone know what Dynamic Planet should be covering next year? I've heard Earthquakes and Volcanoes, but I wasn't sure if that was exactly the case.

[bernard]

Does anyone know what Dynamic Planet should be covering next year? I've heard Earthquakes and Volcanoes, but I wasn't sure if that was exactly the case.

Tectonics, but of course until rules are released it is tentative.

[0ddrenaline]

Suggestion: Outline the test subjects for Optics as well as they were in It's About Time/Wind Power this year.