Illinois 2013

[chia]

Well, technically, it's called TEAMS (Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics and Science); we're used to calling it JETS, which stood for Junior Engineering Technical Society, but the competition itself was acquired by TSA, so now it's officially called TSA TEAMS. 8-person teams learn about specific areas of engineering (last year's topic was biomedical engineering, and each person specialises in a "scenario" such as artificial heart technology or drug development) beforehand. On competition day, we spend a couple of hours answering 80 multiple choice questions (mostly math, often given the equation you need - we can all work together, it doesn't have to be split up exactly by the scenarios) and 8 essays, again one for each scenario. It's one competition a year, and you're ranked in your region/state based on the multiple choice test scores, and nationally based on the essay scores. For us, it's pretty low commitment, just for fun though of course we still need to study enough to do well...

[thsom]

So who's ready for this season to start already?

Who isn't ready?!

[tuftedtitmouse12]

... science activities in general are overshadowed by virtually everything else, not just sports but even speech, debate, "business" clubs like DECA ... I was thinking about how many kids are in all of the science teams at my school all together (without overlaps) and it comes out to around 50, which is a pretty abysmal turnout considering my school's population is almost 3000.

This year seems like it's taking a turn for the better, though - 50 people showed up to just Science Olympiad and many more to Schobowl than we were expecting. Still working on WYSE and JETS though, mostly because those only meet once a month so it's easy for people to forget about them >_>

Hrm, what about WYSE and JETS? /perks up from dull stupor

[Skink]

Cook. It almost sounds...harder than most SO events but less competitive nonetheless because it's probably not a National competition blah blah. Right?

[chia]

Yes, cook but actually, no, other way around - it's definitely easier than most Scioly events, though at the national level it's really hard to do well (I think Libertyville and Stevenson did really well last year though, something like 25th? Out of over 800 schools in the Varsity category).

Hrm, what about WYSE and JETS? /perks up from dull stupor

Assuming that 'Hrm' means "I've never heard of this", WYSE and JETS are, as I said, the other two main science extracurriculars at my school. JETS I talked about a couple of posts back. WYSE (Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering) actually is only an Illinois competition, my favorite of the two It's set up so that each person does two events in the broader branches of science - chem, bio, physics - or math, compsci, something called engineering graphics, and English. I do English and Engineering Graphics, though I'm terrible at the latter

[Skink]

Cook?! Where's that ASCII facepalm when you need it...fail. I'll leave it there so your post doesn't not make sense.

[chia]

I was going to copypaste the facepalm onto here but this message comes up:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /phpBB3/posting.php on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Apparently I get temporarily banned from posting or something when I try to do that because it's simply too spammy to post XD

[Cheesy Pie]

The coach on maternity leave came to the school, and apparently the info meeting is at the end of the month!!!!!

[tuftedtitmouse12]

Yes, cook but actually, no, other way around - it's definitely easier than most Scioly events, though at the national level it's really hard to do well (I think Libertyville and Stevenson did really well last year though, something like 25th? Out of over 800 schools in the Varsity category).

Hrm, what about WYSE and JETS? /perks up from dull stupor

Assuming that 'Hrm' means "I've never heard of this", WYSE and JETS are, as I said, the other two main science extracurriculars at my school. JETS I talked about a couple of posts back. WYSE (Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering) actually is only an Illinois competition, my favorite of the two It's set up so that each person does two events in the broader branches of science - chem, bio, physics - or math, compsci, something called engineering graphics, and English. I do English and Engineering Graphics, though I'm terrible at the latter

That "Hrm" meant I'm interested If you have time to type out a thorough explanation for both, I'd be beyond grateful

[chia]

Not sure how much more specific than the first post on this page I can get on JETS
WYSE, as a couple more people on this forum could probably also tell you, is a competition held at the regional, sectional, and state levels. Each person prepares for two general science/other events as listed in the previous post about this. The tests range from honors-some AP level at the regional level to almost fully AP at states, especially the science ones. The English test is kind of a combination of the AP Language and AP Lit exams with some spelling thrown in. Each test is taken in 40 minutes - in the ballpark of 35-50 multiple choice questions depending on the subject, except for English, which is 100 - and in two blocks, so that each contestant takes two different tests. Top two in each region --> sectionals, top two --> state. (Also a "wild card" team, or the best-scoring third place team across the country, at both levels).
Yep. If you have any more specific questions just PM me, I feel bad adding more non-Scioly discussion onto here, though hopefully it can be forgiven since it's still science-clubs related. Spreading the word!