How to assign events to avoid scheduling conflict?

[jjnv]

Dear all,

New coach head coach here. Last year, I got a color coded event matrix so I know each student can only participate in one event of the same color. For example, Anatomy and Experimental Design is the color, next group is WIDI, Dynamic Planet and Optics....

I don't remember where that matrix come from? It does not seem to match the category of the events. Does anyone know? How do you assign events to make sure no one will have a conflict in the tournaments.

Many thanks for your help!

[zyzzyva980]

You may have received it from a tournament director as the schedule of events for a specific tournament. The schedules change, year-by-year, tournament-by-tournament, so no one schedule will be exactly the same as another. Most schedules try to keep events of a certain field of science, like physics, separate, so one person can compete in as many physics events as necessary.

I don't have too much experience with this, as I'm not a coach. But that's my best shot.

[chalker]

Dear all,

New coach head coach here. Last year, I got a color coded event matrix so I know each student can only participate in one event of the same color. For example, Anatomy and Experimental Design is the color, next group is WIDI, Dynamic Planet and Optics....

I don't remember where that matrix come from? It does not seem to match the category of the events. Does anyone know? How do you assign events to make sure no one will have a conflict in the tournaments.

Many thanks for your help!

Part of SO is the need to be adaptable as a team. Most tournaments set their own event schedule, so the pairing that works at one invitational might not work at a regional or vice versa. My recommendation, if possible, is have all your students pick 2-3 events they will work on. That way there should be enough 'alternates' to go around if the best students are unavailable for a given time slot due to a conflicting event.

[prelude to death]

What my team does is at the beginning of the year, we pick around 4-6 events (sometimes even more) that we're interested in. Since the Regional that my team attends doesn't run all the events, we get tested first on our Regional events. After determining who's going to do which events, the coach might assign someone who's already on the team to be an alternate on an event - someone who scored fairly well on the test for that event, but didn't make it in because they weren't as good as those assigned to the event. Once the schedule is released, my coach gives us all copies of the schedule, and we have to tell the coach if we have any event conflicts. Usually, the alternate will step in, or two people might switch events. However, in the off chance that there's no alternate for that event, or the alternate's schedule also conflicts, the coach will usually assign someone (at the last minute) to the event. (That's never happened to my team before though....)

[JKrafsur]

This years schedule can be found at the following link:

Assuming your state follows the national schedule, not all teams go at the same time, but all the events for each team go at the same time (i.e, Forestry, Water Quality, Reach for the Stars would be at 10am for team 31 and 11 for team 41, so it is fair either way)

http://www.scienceolympiad2012.com/schedule.htm

[winneratlife]

Although I am not a coach, I have experience writing lineups as a captain.

In my experience, because sometimes (especially at invitationals), the schedules come out so late, I'll first assign events with no consideration of conflicts and keep a couple alternates for each event. When the schedule actually does come out, I usually make a table that looks like:

1st block..........2nd block..........3rd block..........4th block..........5th block..........6th block
Event 1............Event 2............Event 3............Event 4............Event 5...........Event 6
Person 1A........Person 2A..........Person 3A.........Person 4A.........Person 5A.........Person 6A
Person 1B........Person 2B..........Person 3B.........Person 4B.........Person 5B.........Person 6B
Event 7............Event 8............Event 9............Event 10............Event 11...........Event 12
Person 7A........Person 8A..........Person 9A.........Person 10A.........Person 11A.........Person 12A
Person 7B........Person 8B..........Person 9B.........Person 10B.........Person 11B.........Person 12B

I can see conflicts by checking for duplicates in vertical columns.
I'll ask everyone with a conflict which event they'd rather have, and take them out of the other, then I'll call up an alternate and give them the event they missed.

So let's say someone was doing events 3 and 9. Then, I would ask them whether they wanted event 3 or 9. If they wanted 9, I'd pull them out of their slot in 3 and hand it to someone else.

Normally, because not all competitions run the same schedule, I've found I start with the same base schedule every time and then just change it based on timeslots alone.

[fishman100]

I personally haven't tried scheduling an entire team but if you create a spreadsheet or something then it should be easy. Have the team members say which events they want (their top 4 or 5 picks) and who they want to work with, then give them their top ~3 events and group them with partners they want to work with. Our team did this at the beginning of last year and we got our final events and schedules probably 15 minutes into the meeting. Also you could create a spreadsheet with all of their event choices and see if there are any conflicts; if so then notify them.

One thing to look at is the Regional/State/nats schedule, but for VA they Regs/State schedule hasn't been posted yet. If you plan to start in, say, late September to mid-October, then you might have a copy of the Regs schedule (depending on when they put it up). If you haven't already visited the VASO website, it will help to check it out since it is updates frequently: http://virginiaso.com/index.php

Speaking of VA, which school's team are you coaching? (I myself am at Langley HS.)

[kjhsscioly]

My coaches and I have always done it this way: You list all 15 people in a spreadsheet, in one column, and in a section below, in 6 columns, list the events that occur that hour, with each column corresponding to an hour. Make sure to list each event twice, because two people are in it. Cut and paste the events up in their respective columns, in the row of the person doing it. That way, you can't schedule the same person in two events at the same time, every event has two people in it, and it is relatively easy to refer to and make a chart by event from this. If it is still unclear, I can post a screenshot.

[KMHS_Dave]

The best thing to do is to check out the National site tentative schedule and your local state tentative schedule and then wait patiently until your Regional Site coordinator announces publicly what events will be dropped for that year's regional and what the schedule is for the regional competition. The same events that conflict at nationals will generally conflict at states, and the same events that conflict at states will generally conflict at nationals. This method, however, may not hold necessarily true for all events but it is the best way to figure out which events should conflict when the regional schedule hasn't been released yet. Do NOT pressure your coaches or Regional site coordinator to rush to put out the schedule. Most schedules are subject to change at the discretion of the site coordinator. DO remember to be extra polite, and courteous to the site coordinator, his/her staff, AND the so called "home" team (if applicable) (who for the record have no advantage over any other team except for being a bit better at navigating the halls since they do it every day) for all of them will be working especially hard to accommodate YOU and to make make your day and tournament as easy going and fun as possible.