Bad Event Coordinators

[Littleboy]

In towers at regionals, the judges forgot to weigh the towers until our team member brought it up. They apparently made up weights for the ones that had gone before.

What, you can't weigh towers in your head?

Um… I like this design because it is very complex, so it must weigh 5 grams (when i actually ways 100 grams).
Um… I hate this design because it is too simple, so it must weigh 100 grams (when i actually ways 5 grams).
That way is not very accurate.

[chalker]

Wow this is a serious problem. All the hard working students who hope to do so well deserve better than this. A new system of appeal should definitely be developed, because being able to do nothing after scoring is over can make or break teams that deserve to go to nats/place higher.

I'll point out again what I did earlier in this thread:

You might be interested in knowing the policy related to this for Nationals. I assume many State tournaments have the same policy.
http://soinc.org/scoring_guidelines

Note: NATIONAL TOURNAMENT SCORING POLICY- At the end of the Science Olympiad National Awards Ceremony each team’s head coach will be provided one copy of the final scores. Places are tentative and may change if any scoring inconsistencies are brought to the attention of the arbitrators and verified within one hour after the ceremony is completed. If changes occur, the appropriate medals and trophies will be awarded. Scores for the National Science Olympiad are not official until they are posted on the soinc.org website.

[hscmom]

Here we go again.

Just had our Regionals. The C optics board was the wrong size and our optics team (who figured out a nice little way to accurately get the target quickly and had practiced lots) did not do too well. The ED was not written like an ED problem. It was some sort of weird question (more like a Tech Problem Solving) that didn't easily translate to an ED problem. The microbe/B test was written by some college dude who said, "well, I'll give you a minute per question" and there were 20 questions and he kicked the B team out after 20 minutes. We were shocked to see our two Microbe boys show back up at the team table only a half hour after they left. The battery buggy track was about 1.5 meters too short! To their credit, they kindly fixed it. At impound time we saw a lot of supervisors reading the rules as machines were impounded. Disease Detectives was to start at 7 AM but every time a new team moseyed in, the supervisor started his instruction speech again and they had about 30 mins to do the 17 page test. The hand stamp station was slow and that's why a lot of kids were late to Disease. The loading block for Towers was crooked and didn't hang straight down. Oh well, at least it was consistently off for all teams (it's not like the optics board was bad for just us or the microbe test was short for just us...).

Sounds horrible, but to their credit, most everything else was excellent. The rooms were well marked so it was easy for kids to get to events. The other teams were basically polite, things were on time. Overall, it was a good experience. They are often scrounging at the last minute to find someone for a particular event and they don't have time to figure out what to do. We're jazzed because both our B and C teams got SECOND (not bad for our second year having a C team and third having a B team, both being "understaffed" and young) and we're starting to want to go to Nats...

[Flavorflav]

... At impound time we saw a lot of supervisors reading the rules as machines were impounded. Disease Detectives was to start at 7 AM but every time a new team moseyed in, the supervisor started his instruction speech again and they had about 30 mins to do the 17 page test. The hand stamp station was slow and that's why a lot of kids were late to Disease. The loading block for Towers was crooked and didn't hang straight down. Oh well, at least it was consistently off for all teams (it's not like the optics board was bad for just us or the microbe test was short for just us...) ...

I always take a minute to glance through the rules again just before impound, not because I haven't read them before, but as a final refresher. The judge you have to worry about is the one who doesn't have the rules handy. Also, what do you mean by "crooked?" Obviously the bucket has to hang straight down (that's kind of the definition of "down") - do you mean the top and bottom of the loading block were not parallel, or the bottom was not flat or soemthing?

[chalker]

Here we go again.

Just had our Regionals. The C optics board was the wrong size and our optics team (who figured out a nice little way to accurately get the target quickly and had practiced lots) did not do too well.

As the National Event Supervisor for Optics, I'd be interested in hearing more details about the LSS being the 'wrong size'.

[dholdgreve]

... At impound time we saw a lot of supervisors reading the rules as machines were impounded. Disease Detectives was to start at 7 AM but every time a new team moseyed in, the supervisor started his instruction speech again and they had about 30 mins to do the 17 page test. The hand stamp station was slow and that's why a lot of kids were late to Disease. The loading block for Towers was crooked and didn't hang straight down. Oh well, at least it was consistently off for all teams (it's not like the optics board was bad for just us or the microbe test was short for just us...) ...

I always take a minute to glance through the rules again just before impound, not because I haven't read them before, but as a final refresher. The judge you have to worry about is the one who doesn't have the rules handy. Also, what do you mean by "crooked?" Obviously the bucket has to hang straight down (that's kind of the definition of "down") - do you mean the top and bottom of the loading block were not parallel, or the bottom was not flat or soemthing?

My assumption on the crooked tower comment is that the testing platform was not perfectly level. One might get away with that on bridges or boom, but because the tower base is smaller than the overall height of the tower, the slightest slope to the testing platform is really magnified. If a testing platform is off by 1 cm from one side of the opening to the other, the top of the tower will be forced 2.5 cm out of plumb, and put substantially more weight on the 2 "short" legs.

[gneissisnice]

... At impound time we saw a lot of supervisors reading the rules as machines were impounded. Disease Detectives was to start at 7 AM but every time a new team moseyed in, the supervisor started his instruction speech again and they had about 30 mins to do the 17 page test. The hand stamp station was slow and that's why a lot of kids were late to Disease. The loading block for Towers was crooked and didn't hang straight down. Oh well, at least it was consistently off for all teams (it's not like the optics board was bad for just us or the microbe test was short for just us...) ...

I always take a minute to glance through the rules again just before impound, not because I haven't read them before, but as a final refresher. The judge you have to worry about is the one who doesn't have the rules handy. Also, what do you mean by "crooked?" Obviously the bucket has to hang straight down (that's kind of the definition of "down") - do you mean the top and bottom of the loading block were not parallel, or the bottom was not flat or soemthing?

My assumption on the crooked tower comment is that the testing platform was not perfectly level. One might get away with that on bridges or boom, but because the tower base is smaller than the overall height of the tower, the slightest slope to the testing platform is really magnified. If a testing platform is off by 1 cm from one side of the opening to the other, the top of the tower will be forced 2.5 cm out of plumb, and put substantially more weight on the 2 "short" legs.

This is why I prefer study events. So much more straightforward >.>
Though that's not to say that study events don't get problems too (the Food Science event at NY States when I was in 11th grade that felt like a mix between Chem Lab and Forensics with almost 0 questions on Food Science comes to mind).

[skillfullparrot7]

Our regional competition is a joke. The event coordinators aren't prepared at all, and some of the questions on the tests you might find in elementary SO. At least two of the tests that I've seen or heard about are the EXACT same as last year. For shock value we had to build a circuit with some things that snap and answer simple observing questions like reading a volt meter or amemeter, or (lol)telling which bulb is brighter(I'm dead serious on that one). I think ours is probably the most unprepared in the country.

[abator]

At one invitational I went to the Battery buggy start and finish dots weren't in a straight line with the bucket. At regional The ceiling above the Battery Buggy track was dripping and some ceiling tiles fell down. The track itself had cracks going every which way. One team was having a great run and when it hit the crack it veered off the track and hit the wall. For meteorology at regional the man in charge of the event gave you the test as soon as you arrived and he didn't check our cheat sheets and so some other schools had almost three papers. This made the event unfair to the teams that followed the rules.

Regional
3rd Meteorology
4th Road Scholar
5th Solar System
8th Battery Buggy
4th overall We are going to state 2011!