Scioly.org

Discussion for Keep the Heat B and Thermodynamics Lab C

Thermodynamics Lab Wiki
2012 Thread
2009 Thread
Keep the Heat Test Exchange 2013
Thermodynamics Test Exchange 2013

Any thoughts on how the rules will/has changed for Keep the Heat?

Probably a new scoring method and dimension changes. I could dream of allowing more materials, but I doubt it.

Yeah thats whats mostlikely going to happen. But do you think theres a chance they'd change the guidelines/rules about the test? a bit more of information maybe?

Oh, I have no idea what they'd do to the test, I think it's going to end up being the same thing, honestly.

Unless they outlined exactly what could be tested, then I would expect it to be the same

siciscio wrote:Yeah thats whats most likely going to happen. But do you think theres a chance they'd change the guidelines/rules about the test? a bit more of information maybe?

In other words, you found last year's rules too vague. I'd agree to a degree, but too clearly defined rules wouldn't work for this event since you get a binder. Theoretically, you can hole punch sections of thermo textbooks and bring them in your binder (I'm not saying this would be effective...refer to Dr. Chalker's photo of the giant binder), so having less well-defined test topics like 'thermodynamic processes' is better than if it listed three for you to know and have in your binder.
And the rest actually weren't bad. Temperature conversions is clear...I suppose the history one was vague, yeah. That's where coming prepared for anything may help. Yeah, I'm not anticipating this section to be reworded at all, unfortunately.

Skink wrote:

siciscio wrote:Yeah thats whats most likely going to happen. But do you think theres a chance they'd change the guidelines/rules about the test? a bit more of information maybe?

In other words, you found last year's rules too vague. I'd agree to a degree, but too clearly defined rules wouldn't work for this event since you get a binder. Theoretically, you can hole punch sections of thermo textbooks and bring them in your binder (I'm not saying this would be effective...refer to Dr. Chalker's photo of the giant binder), so having less well-defined test topics like 'thermodynamic processes' is better than if it listed three for you to know and have in your binder.
And the rest actually weren't bad. Temperature conversions is clear...I suppose the history one was vague, yeah. That's where coming prepared for anything may help. Yeah, I'm not anticipating this section to be reworded at all, unfortunately.

I'm just going to say that I agree that the rules were vague last year: there was an entire page on the building rules, then only a small paragraph at the end describing the test rules.

I'm really excited for this year--I think we can medal at Nats this year. We came in tenth last year, and that was only because our device was completely ruined the night before and I had to make a new one in the space of 30 minutes.

I like the test rules as they are...except that all the tests are exceptionally easy, even at Nats. I think there was maybe one question that my partner and I had trouble with, and we figured it out all right in the end. (I think we only placed tenth because our prediction was about 10 degrees Celsius lower than what our actual temperature was...)

One thing I was seriously hoping would change was the way the actual testing of the "box" was done. There were many sources of error and that really reduced the accuracy of the measurement of the box's insulating capabilities. This was a big thing last year. Anyone else notice???