Protein Modeling at Invitationals

[meierfra]

I run an invitational in Michigan and I would like to provide Toobers for Protein Modeling. I talked to someone today at 3D Molecular Designs and she said the Toobers for an on-site next year will be $18 per team. We're a rather inexpensive invite; the last couple of years our admission was $65 per team. We tend to get a lot of new and young teams. And I think a jump of $18 in the price might price some of them right out of being able to participate. I wanted to know what other people's opinion is on using Toobers vs. 10 or 12 gauge wire or pipe cleaners.

The reason I don't want to use wire is that some of the students don't have the hand strength to bend and manipulate the wire. Pipe cleaners aren't really long enough or stiff enough. Most, if not all, of the Regionals in Michigan will use Toobers, and the State definitely will. If invites are supposed to be practice for Regionals, etc, I want to provide Toobers.

What do you think?

[EastStroudsburg13]

If your goal is to keep costs low, I would consider forgoing the on-site build, and instead add a test section that requires teams to go into the Jmol environment and answer questions about manipulating the environment to find different features of the protein. You could also include some questions about the commands themselves, e.g. "what command would you use to do X". If you make this aspect of the tournament clear to prospective teams beforehand, I think there would be teams willing to pay $18 less since it only impacts one event.

[Unome]

Protein Modeling sounds like it would be horrible for TDs...

[meierfra]

Protein Modeling sounds like it would be horrible for TDs...

TDs?

[Tailsfan101]

Protein Modeling sounds like it would be horrible for TDs...

TDs?

Tournament Directors, I think?

[windu34]

Protein Modeling sounds like it would be horrible for TDs...

To be fair, all the chemistry events are logistical nightmares for organizers hence the reason they are so often run poorly (or cancelled altogether), but they are certainly some of the most hands-on events so its just something to continuously struggle to deal with

[sciolycoach]

Hello,

We ran Protein Modeling in Wisconsin at the Boyceville Invite as well as several other invites (UWRF, Belleville, Medford, and the West Regional). We found these to work very well for the on-site build:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0026 ... UTF8&psc=1

We cut them to length before the competition and they were very inexpensive. They worked pretty well.

Hope this helps!

Andy

[Unome]

Protein Modeling sounds like it would be horrible for TDs...

To be fair, all the chemistry events are logistical nightmares for organizers hence the reason they are so often run poorly (or cancelled altogether), but they are certainly some of the most hands-on events so its just something to continuously struggle to deal with

Sure, but from my experience the remainder aren't quite so difficult other than getting lab rooms (although that's something I have no experience with handling at colleges so I might be understating that part...).