Crime Busters B

[pikachu4919]

Crime Busters B: Given a scenario, a collection of evidence, and possible suspects, students will perform a series of tests that along with other evidence will be used to solve a crime.

Crime Busters Wiki

Recommended Lab Equipment List for Div. B

Past Threads: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018

Past Question Marathons: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018

[dholdgreve]

I for one am disappointed that they no longer are listing the allowed equipment within the event rules. Instead, E/Cs need to go to a separate location and download this list. Why in the world have they incorporated the entire list of Fossils, and herbivores , but not included the allowable list of qizmos is beyond me...

[Unome]

I for one am disappointed that they no longer are listing the allowed equipment within the event rules. Instead, E/Cs need to go to a separate location and download this list. Why in the world have they incorporated the entire list of Fossils, and herbivores , but not included the allowable list of qizmos is beyond me...

Yeah, that was a little strange. It's not like they were short on space on the main rules page anyway.

[dholdgreve]

I for one am disappointed that they no longer are listing the allowed equipment within the event rules. Instead, E/Cs need to go to a separate location and download this list. Why in the world have they incorporated the entire list of Fossils, and herbivores , but not included the allowable list of qizmos is beyond me...

Yeah, that was a little strange. It's not like they were short on space on the main rules page anyway.

It buys them time to develop and post the list... As of this morning it is still "coming soon."

[pikachu4919]

I for one am disappointed that they no longer are listing the allowed equipment within the event rules. Instead, E/Cs need to go to a separate location and download this list. Why in the world have they incorporated the entire list of Fossils, and herbivores , but not included the allowable list of qizmos is beyond me...

Yeah, that was a little strange. It's not like they were short on space on the main rules page anyway.

It buys them time to develop and post the list... As of this morning it is still "coming soon."

It has been posted here: https://www.soinc.org/sites/default/fil ... p_DivB.pdf. I've also updated all the event thread posts for CB, 4n6, PnP, and chem lab to include their respective lists.

[dholdgreve]

Very Strange... Last year, I was told that the intent was to standardize the chem equipment so that kids grabbing a crime busters kit would not be penalized for having unauthorized equipment in Potions. This seems to be going in the opposite direction again where 2 separate kits are required.

[Incineroar999]

Hello. I am looking for some tips for Crime Busters. Anything is appreciated.

[megrimlockawesom]

Hello. I am looking for some tips for Crime Busters. Anything is appreciated.

Common sense will help you with your analysis

[Galahad]

Hello. I am looking for some tips for Crime Busters. Anything is appreciated.

Practice.
Practice is the only way to get good in this event. There's absolutely no way to study for more than 6 hours on this event because there's only so much you need. The only way for you to do well at nationals is to make use of the vast collections of Crime Busters tests throughout the years. When practicing for last years nats we did around a dozen or so labs, doing all of the past national tournament tests as well.

Be ready for anything.
If there's anything that this event has taught me, is that event supervisors are not created equally. On some tests we'd get extremely high scores (beating out the 1st place national champ of that year), on others we'd get somewhere in the moderates (20-10's), and here and there well below (30-20). That's what happened to us at the 2018 Nationals. All things considered, we were a pretty solid team. We were able to identify everything quickly and match up the evidence, but the formatting of the test got me. It was completely different from what I'd seen before, and was used to writing on. I screwed up big time on it. Our coach (and us even) thought we had a solid chance at the gold medal. Alas, we didn't get close looking back. We got used to the formats of the previous years, and just assumed it was going to be like that this year.
(P.S. they had like 2 illegal mixtures so like I don't think the ES knew what he was doing? I mean the test was kpadk[pihowbjdnm)

Don't use paragraphs for the analysis.
Event supervisors hate it (coming from an actual crime ES). It's really disorganized and unnecessary to write a paragraph on something that can be listed. What we did (and got rather high points for, other than the 2018 nats test which forced us to write short sentences here and there [AND DIDNT EVEN GIVE US ENOUGH ROOM]) was use a list format rather. I'd write each suspects name and if they're guilty or not. I'd then write supporting evidence to that verdict.

Ex.

Given that yeast, dog hair, aluminum, and other evidence was found at the crime scene.

Jake - Innocent
---
- Works as an accountant, no reason to have yeast
- Shoeprints do not match
- Fingerprints do not match
- Blood samples do not match
- Does not own a dog, owns a cat

Poppy - Guilty
---
- Works as a sheet metal worker, aluminum was found at the crime scene
- Shoeprints match those found
- Fingerprints match those found
- Blood samples match those found
- Owns a dog


Finally, don't panic.
Crime has got to be the most stressful event I've ever competed in. Not only because of the fast paced mixing and testing, but because of the extreme time crunch toward the end. Only on around 40% of my practices I had extra time after finishing up the analysis. But don't stress.
Stressing causes you to be not careful, my biggest flaw as a "crime buster". Stop focusing on the clock, but on what you have to do.
50 minutes is A LOT OF TIME, don't waste it with stress or mistakes.

Ah I'm going to miss this event. Conflicts with Herpetology

Just relax, focus on what you have to do, and keep it simple. You'll do great with practice and experience.

[Anapolis]

Don't use paragraphs for the analysis.
Event supervisors hate it (coming from an actual crime ES). It's really disorganized and unnecessary to write a paragraph on something that can be listed. What we did (and got rather high points for, other than the 2018 nats test which forced us to write short sentences here and there [AND DIDNT EVEN GIVE US ENOUGH ROOM]) was use a list format rather. I'd write each suspects name and if they're guilty or not. I'd then write supporting evidence to that verdict.

Ex.

Given that yeast, dog hair, aluminum, and other evidence was found at the crime scene.

Jake - Innocent
---
- Works as an accountant, no reason to have yeast
- Shoeprints do not match
- Fingerprints do not match
- Blood samples do not match
- Does not own a dog, owns a cat

Poppy - Guilty
---
- Works as a sheet metal worker, aluminum was found at the crime scene
- Shoeprints match those found
- Fingerprints match those found
- Blood samples match those found
- Owns a dog


Finally, don't panic.
Crime has got to be the most stressful event I've ever competed in. Not only because of the fast paced mixing and testing, but because of the extreme time crunch toward the end. Only on around 40% of my practices I had extra time after finishing up the analysis. But don't stress.
Stressing causes you to be not careful, my biggest flaw as a "crime buster". Stop focusing on the clock, but on what you have to do.
50 minutes is A LOT OF TIME, don't waste it with stress or mistakes.

Ah I'm going to miss this event. Conflicts with Herpetology

Just relax, focus on what you have to do, and keep it simple. You'll do great with practice and experience.

idk man I feel like the event supervisors are expecting the competitors to write a multi-paragraph analysis, not only on the prime suspect but also on why the other suspects didn't commit the crime. We never had an issue with this and often finished with time to spare. My advice is to split up the work, meand my partner each found our strengths and focused on completing our tasks separately, (dont both do id, multitasking is very helpful!!!) we only conferred with eachother when something was reAlly sus (yeast in a mixture at nats i Am def not salty but also the entire nats test in general, again not salty at all). I completely trusted my partners ability and we often found ourselves finishing with time to spare, so i could go over the analysis and clean up (clean up!!). Also think about how you can maximize the efficiency of what you are doing, if something takes a while (chromatography) do it immediately, focus on id before answering the follow up questions, stuff like that really helps quicken the test taking process. maybe focus on finding ur strengths in this event, i was really good at iding really fast (look test lol) so thats basically all i did and my partner (carried me) did analysis.