Codebusters B/C

[bernard]

[Seb09]

Writers, please consider making the signal for the timed question fun (for in-person tournaments). Give competitors something to remember, they probably haven't had any real scioly memories in a year and a half.

Ideas include movie quotes/scenes, songs, or commercial jingles.

Examples I've used:
JTOK Scrimmage '20: "I am inevitable" snap (Avengers: Endgame)
JT Invite '20: "This is for Tupac" stab the table (Chucky reboot)

[awesomeaidan123]

I am yet to be able to experience scioly memories, not over zoom of course. The timed questions have been pretty strange and buggy virtually, just ruining the experience of the exam in total because we start off with a bad mood.

I am very excited about the new scioly season.

[knightmoves]

Writers, please consider making the signal for the timed question fun (for in-person tournaments). Give competitors something to remember, they probably haven't had any real scioly memories in a year and a half.

Please don't make it too fun. For a number of people with introversion & anxiety issues, yelling out some cheesy quote from a movie might be something they remember, but not in a good way.

Although I might make an exception for "I am Spartacus!".

[RasmitDevkota]

Writers, please consider making the signal for the timed question fun (for in-person tournaments). Give competitors something to remember, they probably haven't had any real scioly memories in a year and a half.

Ideas include movie quotes/scenes, songs, or commercial jingles.

Examples I've used:
JTOK Scrimmage '20: "I am inevitable" snap (Avengers: Endgame)
JT Invite '20: "This is for Tupac" stab the table (Chucky reboot)

You forgot "I LOVE [SCIOLYPERSON1]!" and "TIME'S UP!"

[Klebb]

Reposted for the new season! Originally released 16 Aug 2021. V.2 is coming in the next month or two, hopefully.

Hello Science Olympiad community (again)!

Presenting…

How to Write a Codebusters Test (v.1)
Written mostly by me, Klebb!

I’ve been working on this since around April 2021, and it is finally here! This is a resource for current and aspiring event supervisors, test authors, and, by extension, tournament directors of Codebusters B/C to get a good idea on what makes a good test for the event.

In v.1, I go over each of the ciphers in the 2020-2021 rules, detailing how to write good questions and balance out the test. I plan to expand this in v.2 to new ciphers and other possible rule changes once the 2022 rules are released.

With that said, here is the document! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pa-Cwp ... 6-jLQ/view

Happy codebusting!
-Klebb

Acknowledgements:
This project would not have been possible without the following people. The following acknowledgements are taken from the paper itself, with names replaced with scioly.org usernames, as appropriate.

The following people contributed sections to this guide: Umaroth, Chris Ge. Thank you both for helping me write up ciphers I’m not as familiar with, and for being involved in the editing process.

The following people helped with editing the guide and adding examples; they caught typos, clarified wording, and added ideas to make the guide more complete: builderguy135, Name, kh.aotic, sciolyperson1, and will0416. Thank you all for your contributions.

Thank you to the competitions that released their tests that I used as examples in this guide. Without them writing this would have been much harder.

Thank you to califORNIa, The Cult of Intelligent Avians, the BirdSO Event Supervisors, and Droptogrambustics for your support over the past year and helping facilitate my growth both here and elsewhere. This guide wouldn’t exist without all of you.

And one final special thank you to Dylan Yu in the competitive math community, who designed the LaTeX package that formats the entire guide!

[invisibleinc]

I have been using John Toebes's exam writer for Code Busters for the last four or five years, the same one I assume everyone else is using. I never had to login before, and I had loads of tests on there that always showed up when I pulled up the page. Last time I accessed was about two week ago. Today I go on there and all my tests are gone. I noticed the login button in the corner and logged in, but still no tests. I really need my tests. I had so many on there, I really don't want to have to start over from scratch. There used to be a "contact" option for help, but it's not there anymore. Those tests took me hours and hours over the years to make. Is anyone else having this issue?

[invisibleinc]

Update: So I made a few new tests while logged in. Today I signed in, and those tests are now gone also. I guess if we want to keep our tests we will have to save them to our own hardware.

[awesomeaidan123]

Yep, I have the same issue!

[l0lit]

I am not 100% sure, but it looks like tests are stored locally in your browser's cookies, not to an account when logged in. If you clear/disable your cookies or use Toebes in incognito mode, the tests will be removed too. The safest bet is to manually export all your tests as JSON files so you can import them if they disappear.