Should i be worried about states?

[ElliottNMS]

Hello, as you can tell from the title i am a bit worried about states coming up in just 8 days. since this is my first post i’m going to give you a small introduction to who i am and what i do.
Im a student at Norwin Middle school (5th in Pennsylvania Southwest) and this is my first year in science olympiad. I’m currently doing Meteorology, Road scholar, And Wheeled Vehicle. I placed 4th in my events (overall) With all this information, Should i be worried?

[onshape]

You shouldn't be worried at all. Don't know about your state but you can do well or badly regardless of how much you're worrying about it. Just do your best and have fun.

[pumptato-cat]

PA is pretty competitive. Like onshape said, have fun with your teammates and make the most of states! Good luck next weekend.
It's your first year, so prepare accordingly and then decide how much you want to commit to your events. First years are hardest due to a lack of experience, and I barely medalled in my (not competitive) state in my first Div. B year. Don't stress over next week too much, because you have plenty of chances in the future to improve your placings! SO is a marathon, not a sprint.
Enjoy the ride, and decide afterwards whether you want and need to put in more work for the next season. Whatever you do in the next 8 days will not drastically change your placement either way. The highest placers usually start working months in advance.

If you place well, congrats! If you don't do as good as you wanted to, that's okay too. Don't beat yourself up over it and know that you have plenty of time ahead of you(Div B, Div C) to improve.

[Nydauron]

I agree with everything that has been said here so far.

I am reluctant to have gotten the opportunity to go to state all 4 years during my time on Div C (first 2 as an alt, and last 2 on varsity). Looking back, despite having medalled in a handful of events at the state level, it was the memories and the traveling down to the state with my teammates that stuck with me the most. It's something I wish I had focussed more on during my senior year rather than trying to min-max my events, which led to more stress and anxiety than I'd like to admit. At the end of the day, your rank is merely a number and the experience and what you learned along the way will carry on.

On a little side note, regarding build events in general (more applicable for supervisors to offer, but it's good for competitors to know), if I were in a situation where my build could not perform or something critical was forgotten in impound, I would, at the very least, ask the event supervisor (ES) to see if I could come in after all self-schedule slots have been completed to run my build. All those runs would have no score associated, but it at least gives an opportunity for students to run their vehicle/build. It never hurts to ask the ES, and the worst they can say is no (though if they have no legitimate reason to say no and still say no, then that goes against what Science Olympiad is all about, IMHO).

I helped Co-ES Robot Tour at IL State this past week, and we had a team whose batteries (including spare ones) were dead. Unfortunately, the team did not discover this until during their time slot during their setup time. So, as a compromise, we said we could only give them P points, but we offered them to come back at the end of the day if they wanted to run their robot (which would not count towards their placement). Regardless, it sucks when things go wrong in the moment, but IMO there is no reason for that mistake to rob students of an experience after weeks/months of hard work just trying to get there. In our case, the team ended up not coming back, I guess because most teams pack up their homerooms and load their buses to get out quickly after awards end.

Either way, best of luck this weekend. Try not to sweat it too much, but instead, go and smell the roses and, most of all, have fun!

[StarlightSonata]

Hey there! Medaling in any state always requires quite a bit effort, if that's what you're aiming for. However, it's definitely not out of reach even in your first year! My div C placement (this is my first year) in regionals was 9th, but I managed to medal at states in my main event, so good luck!!!