2015 National Tournament: University of Nebraska

[bernard]

I have a few screenshots from the end of Division B awards and screenshots for each event/team award from Division C awards. If you're interested in them, they are here: scioly.club/sont.

[RontgensWallaby]

What happened in Endangered, Exotic, Extinct??

[bonysteak]

Did anyone else think Bungee Drop was run horrendously?

The drop mechanism was awful - it was a platform that you flipped in order for the bottle to drop. First of all what comes with this is the danger of the bottle tipping over on its side/flipping over as it falls. If they were gonna go with this stuff, at least make the platform straight...it was tilted -_-

And for another thing one of the drop heights was lower than the minimum 5 meters... I facepalm'd so hard...

When my partner and I went around 11:15 or so, there were like two teams in front of us, then when it was our turn the supervisors told us they were taking a 15 minute lunch break (like...uh, do you have any spare supervisors that could take over while you rest?) . So partner and I went to eat lunch too and when we came back there was at least 15 teams ahead of us. I was wondering how they could possibly be so behind - we went at the start of the time block right after lunch and finished right before the last time block was due to start - and it was because they weren't enforcing the 5 minute time limit. I swear, some of the teams were taking 10-15 minutes. I ended up missing my other building event, and I had to do Forensics in 40 minutes and without a kit. (still got 34th yaaas)

[shmipku]

And the Parade of States was a little sad for the teams at the beginning. Marching out to empty seats (and the sad music...) was kind of depressing.

i totally agree the opening ceremony was overall pretty depressing. the music was so sad, so sad (seriously pls at least change this) and because entire teams had to participate in it there was very little cheering for each school when they came out (especially for the first few teams) because the majority of the students who were supposed to populate the audience and provide encouraging screaming/clapping were marching in the parade. i felt like the speaker was a little awkward, too. there was virtually no energy in the audience during the ceremony-we all just sat silently fidgeting in the bleachers waiting for it to end so the swap meet could start.

[hotchocolate123]

What happened in Endangered, Exotic, Extinct??

When I was competing in this event, Chalker came up to the proctor and asked if she was digitally inserting the scores onto the online spreadsheet. The proctor replied that she was unaware of a digital scoresheet and said that she was recording the scores manually. So I assume the tournament directors never bothered to type up the score sheet that the proctor wrote down and just put everyone in 61st place. Although it was only a trial event, I'm really disappointed, and I hope that they'll make an effort to upload the results.

[hotchocolate123]

Also, I know trial events aren't as important as the 23 national events, but I really disliked the way Nebraska presented the trial awards this year. From my 4 years at being at nationals, every year (except this year) the trial events were announced at the awards ceremony and the competitors received a Science Olympiad medal. This year, (in my honest opinion) it just seemed like they were belittling the trial events. Not only did they separate the awards, but the medals were imprinted with a large University of Nebraska logo and the word "Trial Event". I got the fortune of sitting up close to the announcer, and the results were simply read off a sheet of notebook paper in the corner of the venue. Of course, this is just me being nit picky on certain things, but I just don't see the need to change the way trial events were presented before. After all, I'm pretty sure the competitors who participated in the trial events studied just as hard as those who competed in the actual events.

[Jaol]

Also, I know trial events aren't as important as the 23 national events, but I really disliked the way Nebraska presented the trial awards this year. From my 4 years at being at nationals, every year (except this year) the trial events were announced at the awards ceremony and the competitors received a Science Olympiad medal. This year, (in my honest opinion) it just seemed like they were belittling the trial events. Not only did they separate the awards, but the medals were imprinted with a large University of Nebraska logo and the word "Trial Event". I got the fortune of sitting up close to the announcer, and the results were simply read off a sheet of notebook paper in the corner of the venue. Of course, this is just me being nit picky on certain things, but I just don't see the need to change the way trial events were presented before. After all, I'm pretty sure the competitors who participated in the trial events studied just as hard as those who competed in the actual events.

Hmmm... I somewhat agree with you. My trial event get cancelled due do bad weather and curfew for results and they still presented results. It sucked because I was really excited about them.

[Jaol]

What happened in Endangered, Exotic, Extinct??

When I was competing in this event, Chalker came up to the proctor and asked if she was digitally inserting the scores onto the online spreadsheet. The proctor replied that she was unaware of a digital scoresheet and said that she was recording the scores manually. So I assume the tournament directors never bothered to type up the score sheet that the proctor wrote down and just put everyone in 61st place. Although it was only a trial event, I'm really disappointed, and I hope that they'll make an effort to upload the results.

That's really stupid.

[John Richardsim]

Also, I know trial events aren't as important as the 23 national events, but I really disliked the way Nebraska presented the trial awards this year. From my 4 years at being at nationals, every year (except this year) the trial events were announced at the awards ceremony and the competitors received a Science Olympiad medal. This year, (in my honest opinion) it just seemed like they were belittling the trial events. Not only did they separate the awards, but the medals were imprinted with a large University of Nebraska logo and the word "Trial Event". I got the fortune of sitting up close to the announcer, and the results were simply read off a sheet of notebook paper in the corner of the venue. Of course, this is just me being nit picky on certain things, but I just don't see the need to change the way trial events were presented before. After all, I'm pretty sure the competitors who participated in the trial events studied just as hard as those who competed in the actual events.

Yeah, trials being announced separately and the advertisement medals = lame. But hey, at least you got to watch the "celebrity" egg drop (I never realized how much the definition of "celebrity" could vary...).

I can only imagine the parade of states this way being quite unexciting and taking waaaaayyy longer than usual (to the point where it's flat-out boring).

Wow, I totally called this one. I also pity the teams that were first in the parade of states lineup, as although Michigan was probably about the 15th to 20th state in the lineup, by the end of it I was excruciatingly bored. The vast majority of the random state facts that they always said were lame and boring. After watching over a half an hour of this, I could hardly stand it anymore (once again, my greatest sympathy goes out to the first teams in the lineup that had to experience any more of that than I did). And if the parade of states wasn't "exciting" enough, the rest of the opening ceremony in my opinion was also was very..."fun". And if I wasn't having enough fun already, the end of it was somehow even worse than the flash mob last year (how that is possible, I don't know).

And for each of my events:

Disease: nothing really unexpected (nowadays, is it ever?).

Anatomy and Physiology: already went over this one. Although, I did forget to complain how the supervisors showed up about 5 minutes late to the first timeslot. Hopefully they gave other timeslots the same amount of time to take the test (although, remembering the wonderful 5 page test they gave us, I kind of doubt they did).

Meteorology: I was disappointed when I found out on Friday that Dr. Clouser wasn't writing again this year. This disappointment continued when my partner and I got the test and discovered it was at most a good test for a regional competition (it would have been rather short and easy for a state competition, and way too short/easy for a national test). They were also grading the tests from the previous timeslot with a key open on a computer right next to where we were taking our test (if I wanted to, I could have probably gotten a good enough view to see some answers). And finally, when my partner and I had some questions on a couple of vaguely worded questions, instead of making an attempt to answer our questions, the event supervisor practically parroted back our questions to us (I appreciate the fact that he didn't want to mislead us, but it would have been nice if he had been able to give us a slight bit of direction).

Crave the Wave: I much preferred this test over both my regional and state test. The theoretical and experimental portions were well integrated with each other, giving the test a nice flow to it (there was no breaks in the test to switch rooms or send another group of teams to a counter to do the experimental portion). Everything on the test was fair and I can clearly see what I should have done differently, both on the test itself and when practicing throughout the year.

Solar System: once again, nothing really unexpected. The test was very similar to last year's.

Simple Machines: another good test. All questions were very clear.

Bio-Process Lab: also a fair test. More reading than I would have liked to see, but then again, I'm not in charge (nor should I be). Similar to Crave the Wave, I did learn several valuable things when thinking about what I should have done differently.

[chalker]

What happened in Endangered, Exotic, Extinct??

When I was competing in this event, Chalker came up to the proctor and asked if she was digitally inserting the scores onto the online spreadsheet. The proctor replied that she was unaware of a digital scoresheet and said that she was recording the scores manually. So I assume the tournament directors never bothered to type up the score sheet that the proctor wrote down and just put everyone in 61st place. Although it was only a trial event, I'm really disappointed, and I hope that they'll make an effort to upload the results.

61 on the spreadsheet means a 'no show', which is the default setting if we don't have any data. We did have a bit of a mixup with the trial events scoring which I sorted out best I could. I have the 1st-3rd results for EEE, which were announced Friday night, however haven't been able to get the full results from the supervisor yet. She was a local person who wasn't there the rest of the weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to get them tomorrow when she's back in the office.