2014 National Tournament: University of Central Florida

[Hosj]

Our coach decided we couldn't afford to go the banquet so we got dinner there on saturday.

I went to nationals last year, and I am stunned how much worse the food was this time.

[Bozongle]

Yeah, Wackadoos was pretty WACK.
In all seriousness though, after my first meal there I ended up getting Qdoba for every meal for the rest of the trip.

[HeavyHitter406]

.....the guy who was running the whole thing.....

FYI... I don't 'run the whole thing', just the scoring parts.....

Oh, sorry...I didn't mean to reference you. We actually we able to talk to Dr. Putz, which was who I was referencing. Sorry for the confusion. My bad, sorry.

[JonB]

Yeah, Wackadoos was pretty WACK.
In all seriousness though, after my first meal there I ended up getting Qdoba for every meal for the rest of the trip.

I can attest to the fact the food at UCF can be good. When nationals was held at UCF 2 years ago, it was actually pretty amazing. The BBQ was probably the food highlight of the week- VERY good!

[FawnOnyx]

Yeah, Wackadoos was pretty WACK.
In all seriousness though, after my first meal there I ended up getting Qdoba for every meal for the rest of the trip.

I can attest to the fact the food at UCF can be good. When nationals was held at UCF 2 years ago, it was actually pretty amazing. The BBQ was probably the food highlight of the week- VERY good!

Yes, I remember last time at UCF our team got meal passes at the dining halls and it was pretty darn good.

[Crazy Puny Man]

Our coach decided we couldn't afford to go the banquet so we got dinner there on saturday.

I went to nationals last year, and I am stunned how much worse the food was this time.

You did it!

I knew Walter Johnson was in your school district, but I wasn't sure if that was the school you wound up going to

congrats!

[chalker]

While we're on the topic of appeals and arbitrations, what exactly is the process/grounds for disqualification? The event supervisor for rotor egg drop tried to DQ us due to an error somewhere in the registration process messing up the schedule. He did everything in his power to try and keep us from competing, including kicking us out of the area, laughing at our coach while explaining the situation, and - according to my hour and a half wait on the third floor - VERY resistant to sign the form to allow us to compete.

Eventually after much waiting and many trips up and down the stairs, the appeal went through and they let us drop and we got 4th.

As usual, I'm not going to get into too many specifics, however a few comments:

-In SO parlance, DQ means you did something egregious or cheated. I suspect in reality you were being marked as NS (No Show). There is a 1 point difference in the score for those (61 vs 62).
-Having a scheduling error at a National Tournament is very rare - I've never heard of one occurring before (although it appears to have happened here).. thus it's natural for a supervisor to assume the schedule they were provided is correct.
-Scheduling is generally very tight during the tournament. Any significant delay (such as caused by debating an issue with a team) can have a major ripple effect on the rest of the teams yet to compete.
-What you might have perceived as 'laughing' might just be the natural mannerisms of a particular person.

[Toms_42]

While we're on the topic of appeals and arbitrations, what exactly is the process/grounds for disqualification? The event supervisor for rotor egg drop tried to DQ us due to an error somewhere in the registration process messing up the schedule. He did everything in his power to try and keep us from competing, including kicking us out of the area, laughing at our coach while explaining the situation, and - according to my hour and a half wait on the third floor - VERY resistant to sign the form to allow us to compete.

Eventually after much waiting and many trips up and down the stairs, the appeal went through and they let us drop and we got 4th.

As usual, I'm not going to get into too many specifics, however a few comments:

-In SO parlance, DQ means you did something egregious or cheated. I suspect in reality you were being marked as NS (No Show). There is a 1 point difference in the score for those (61 vs 62).
-Having a scheduling error at a National Tournament is very rare - I've never heard of one occurring before (although it appears to have happened here).. thus it's natural for a supervisor to assume the schedule they were provided is correct.
-Scheduling is generally very tight during the tournament. Any significant delay (such as caused by debating an issue with a team) can have a major ripple effect on the rest of the teams yet to compete.
-What you might have perceived as 'laughing' might just be the natural mannerisms of a particular person.

He told us we would not be allowed to compete due to it being against the rules to "change time slots" on the day of the event.

[chalker]

He told us we would not be allowed to compete due to it being against the rules to "change time slots" on the day of the event.

It is indeed against the rules. From http://scienceolympiad2014.com/tournament.html

"Teams are not allowed to make schedule swaps with other teams and supervisors are not permitted to grant any time changes in the posted team schedule. "

[Toms_42]

He told us we would not be allowed to compete due to it being against the rules to "change time slots" on the day of the event.

It is indeed against the rules. From http://scienceolympiad2014.com/tournament.html

"Teams are not allowed to make schedule swaps with other teams and supervisors are not permitted to grant any time changes in the posted team schedule. "

I don't mean to argue, and I realize that it is against the rules to change time slots, but it was the result of incorrect scheduling. My coach is confident that that is the case, and even in the unlikely event that we had registered wrong, measures should be taken to ensure that the team can still compete, not measures against that team... And causing a "ripple" in the run times, as it takes very little time to run the rotor, and they finished early most periods anyway.

No matter the cause, I feel like it is wrong to disallow the students, us, from competing in a competition for kids to promote science due to a registration issue. The whole deal seems very similar to the Ward Melville situation, although much smaller scale.

Either way, this is my perspective from having to sit on the 3rd floor balcony for an hour and a half while being explained that I might not be able to compete in my best event due to a scheduling error with no rationale for disqualification.