Science Olympiad at UPenn 2018 Invitational

[Tom_MS]

Pretty good tests and well run overall...

Remote: The MC was generally pretty good, but the image interpretation was sometimes off-topic (it had us interpreting Landsat images before and after a volcano eruption). Also, some of the short answers were strange considering this year's rules. One was about how GPS works. There was a distinct lack of some relevant subjects like CERES and heat budgeting on much of the test, and there was not much math.

Fermi: Very good test overall, but focused a little too much on weird units.

Astronomy: I can't speak much to the object ID and interpretation portion, but I think it was pretty good. The general knowledge section was a good difficulty for such an invitational, and it stayed very on topic. The physics section was relatively easy, but still reasonable for an invitational. Overall on the sections I did, there wasn't much about supernovas, but other than that, it stayed pretty on topic.

Optics: The test was interesting with a good mix of difficulties, and the laser shoot was well-run. The test was a bit long considering there was also a laser shoot, but it was still reasonable.

Mat Sci: Good but easy test, interesting lab. The test covered all the bases, but only very minimally. I'm not asking for it to be really hard, but there were only a couple questions on some really easy nomenclature, and it had more of the same sorts of questions about the difference between thermoplastics and thermosets that every test has. The lab was certainly different from what I've seen, but it was interesting nonetheless. It (the lab) reminded me a bit more of last year's rules, but still reasonable for this year.

[BobbyJoe]

Some specific event reviews...

Disease: Very good test, covered lots of topics and was very long yet also very interesting and showed what the teams really knew.

Hovercraft: Test seemed like lots of fluid Mechanics but overall the test was good like any other hovercraft test. More word answers then usual is what I thought but I liked it as it showed if the students were just memorizing the formulas or if they actually understood the topic. The event was run well although I feel like they should had a better system to count the amount of weights because it didn't seem as though they were specifically looking for when the teams took off or added weights.

Mission: This event was run well and extremely organized. Scoring was done completely on computerized software so it was fast and easy for the judges. Not too much more to say here...

Overall, UPenn was a great competition and as I am from B Division and usually goes to the wright state invitation, I thought it would be similar to that but it honestly seemed far more competitive...maybe because Div C is just more competitive in general. The tournament was far better than some other invitationals which I have been to and it was a great experience.

[winchesetr]

Event Reviews:
Disease Detectives: Very well written test. Comprehensive, challenging, and covering virtually every topic we were expected to know. I wasn't able to finish, but it seemed as though the majority of the people in the room had that same issue.
Game On: I thought the theme and game time were appropriate, but a little basic. I was not a fan of saving my game to the same flashdrive as other teams before me, but I doubt anyone tampered.
MatSci: I thought the test was good, but a little short and a little easy. There was less polymer chemistry than I was expecting, as well. Nonetheless, I thought it covered the topics well.
Hovercraft: Fair, good test. Covered a lot of fluid mechanics, which was a big difference from the Princeton Test.

If it makes you feel any better, no team finished Disease. I wrote it with the mind that there would be a very, very low percentage of people that would finish the test, and I also wanted to make sure that people could go back to and learn more after SOUP was over! I hope you all can do that I'm really glad you liked it though. If you guys have any other Disease criticisms, questions, or compliments, please share! This is the first invitational test I have written, so I would definitely appreciate the feedback.

Also if anyone has any other questions, please feel free to email me at sroot@sas.upenn.edu

[DarthBuilder]

*Deleted*

[EdwardMMNT]

We drove 13 hours from IL to Penn, and I have to say it was worth it. From my experiences and from what I heard from the rest of my team, the quality of the tests was great across the board.

Disease (1) - Probably one of the most fun tests I have ever taken! It was long and managing time was a real challenge but we finished everything besides a few statistics questions. The cases and questions were well-written, intuitive, and required some truly creative thinking. There could have been fewer statistical tests to calculate (Chi-Square and a few others) but they were fair and it was mostly due to a lack of exposure to actually calculating statistics on prior tests on our part. The WHO and safety hazard questions were a stretch, but were only a few points. Overall, this test was solid from start to finish and kept our adrenaline high the entire time. Well done.

Forensics (3) - A very long test. It was annoying how many mistakes were made on the answer sheets and how the corrections were written in a board far away from us, but besides that, the test covered a lot of material, had relevant trivia, and kept us busy the entire time. All the samples were well organized and my partner said it felt like a national-level test so props to the test-writers on this one. As the person who does mostly Powders-ID, I had to pick up a lot of the sections for us to get close to finishing.

Remote Sensing (10) - The test had a lot of good questions and covered a lot of ground. However, it was missing a lot of the usual climate physics and I felt disappointed there wasn't more short answer questions. Overall for what they had, the multiple choice questions and images were good.

[Ashernoel]

Astronomy (3): Simply put, the test was the best astronomy test I've taken that didn't say "And may the stars be with you!' on the bottom of the first page. The test had a great balance of DSO, theory, and math. If anything, the math could have used eclipsing binary or more elliptical orbital mechanics. I was a little squeezed for time because I was solo, and I did not get to use my notes to confirm answers on the DSO and theory sections, which probably cost me, but it was a really great test. I thoroughly enjoyed taking it.

Thermodynamics (3): The event supervisors were nice, but it seemed they were not entirely committed to making the event spectacular or to the level that many expected. LASA was in my time block, and as the event supers were getting the water ready for teams, they left LASA's water out to the point it started at 40C. Compared to the bath water temp of 55C and our initial water temp of 43C, this put them at a considerable disadvantage in regard to HRF because our water ended at 40C and they had no chance of matching that. On top of this, there were also a few problems with the test. Like that of Hovercraft, we were not allowed to break the test, and it left me and my partner awkwardly looking at different pages to complete our sections. Additionally, there were really strange chemistry problems that were up a significant portion of probably required a really unique relation. Finally, the event supervisors did not tell us where to put our graphs and took off points for not including the dimensions of the sides of our box on our diagram, which cost us a place :/.

Mission Possible (4): During my time block, there were 10 teams testing their devices and the supervisors were noticeably flustered with the activity. We started setting up our device at 12:10, once they were ready for us, and finished set up at 12:30. By the time someone could watch our run, at 12:45, my partner had to leave for rocks. When they did finally watch our run, they made little effort to check any of our specifications and actions, not even our pulley IMAs or circuit. As it always seems to happen with Mission Possible, stuff went wrong and our actual score was a few hundred under its potential, but it still ended up with a medal.

Fermi Questions (5): The test was well rounded with many types of questions: a few pure math/dimensional analysis, a few memorization, a few classic fermi questions, and a few new ones. With only a week of preparation for both me and my partner, I'm really happy about our performance and can't wait to see what we can do with more practice later in the season.

Hovercraft (7): The test had a lot of questions I had not anticipated and our score reflects that. Our hover also ran in 6 seconds, due to a lack of patience only my part, which contributed to our lackluster placement. Although not possible at nationals, I liked how the event supervisors let us choose when to leave the [hide]fluid mechanics based[/hide] test and to test our hovercraft during the time block.

[Ashernoel]

Sorry for the double post, but does anybody have the contact or the name of the event supervisor for astronomy? I have a few questions about the test

Thanks!

[Raleway]

Sorry for the double post, but does anybody have the contact or the name of the event supervisor for astronomy? I have a few questions about the test

Thanks!

All the supervisors are listed on the event information page. The name is John Powell fyi.

[Private Wang Fire]

Sorry for the double post, but does anybody have the contact or the name of the event supervisor for astronomy? I have a few questions about the test

Thanks!

All the supervisors are listed on the event information page. The name is John Powell fyi.

Harriton astro legend - no wonder the test was good

[terence.tan]

Congratulations to LASA for completely dominating and to everyone else that competed at UPenn yesterday! I thought that I'd post a view of my event reviews here:

Hovercraft (21) - Pretty good test! Probably a bit easier than the MIT test but definitely up there in terms of difficulty. I do wish there were a couple more fluid dynamics questions on there but nonetheless I was pleased with the test quality. The track was pretty well-made; our device just wasn't working properly so that's why we screwed up. Overall an A-

Mousetrap Vehicle (5) - Nothing much to say here other than this event was easily the highlight of my day. I thought that this event was run very well and the proctors definitely knew what they were doing. Also, does anybody know how LASA did in this event? Overall an A+

Dynamic Planet (45) - Man, I did not think we did that bad on the test here. It was definitely a well-written test but I guess my teammate and I misunderstood part of the test while taking it (I'll have to look at the test myself when we have our next team meeting). I thought the conceptual questions were pretty good and that it thoroughly tested the topics listed out in the rules manual. Overall an A

Thermodynamics (39) - I thought this event was pretty mediocre in terms of how it was run. Both our team and our A team measured the temperature of the water to be a couple degrees off the initial temperature and the volumes were a little bit off. I'll cut them some slack though; this event and Hovercraft are probably the most difficult events to run properly, and it was definitely not as bad as it was at MIT. The test on the other hand was pretty hard and I wish that I had prepared more for it. Overall a B-

I am not sure if I am allowed to post this but there first run was 0.8 cm off (It was said loud enough for the spectators to here) and their time was pretty good too.

Checking Ezra says that their score was 14.72.

where can i get the scores for the other events?