Do you have any plans this summer? Yes? No? Maybe so? *sales pitch voice* Then you should participate in SSSS! It's also our ten year anniversary--SSSS is officially a full decade old! Keep an eye out for fun SSSS-related events over the course of the summer.
SSSS is a Scioly.org-hosted event run by foreverphysics and BennyTheJett. It’s designed to help people continue to practice for Science Olympiad during the summer months. In this program, community members will be able to submit a resource to the SSSS, get feedback from a moderator about your resource, and ultimately gain access to other user’s resources (a great study tool).
Please read through all of this post (even though it’s slightly on the longer side). There are some very important details included.
Note: SSSS is not a tournament. It is not meant to be a competitive event, but an unofficial study event to practice for the upcoming Science Olympiad season.
SSSS will begin on June 20th, 2022 at 12:01am Eastern Time and continue through mid-August (we will announce the official end date closer to August based on the availability of the selected moderators).
This event will be run similarly to previous years with the exception of Community Driven Exams (CDEs)! You submit a resource, listed below, for one of the events scheduled for the 2022-2023 season. Once it is approved by an SSSS moderator, you gain access to all other resources submitted to SSSS! The resources are yours to use, but we ask that they are not shared with other people (including teammates) not in SSSS. Around August, when SSSS ends, these resources are uploaded to the wiki, test exchange, and image gallery unless otherwise specified. Builds are accepted.
Please note that any resources submitted may be uploaded to the wiki or test exchange at the end of the event, regardless of whether or not they were accepted. This is so the maximum number of resources are available for other people to use and learn from. If a user were to want to not have their resource added onto the wiki or test exchange after SSSS concludes, the user should clearly state in their submission email that they do not want their resource uploaded.
Interested? Here are the logistics of participating in SSSS in detail:
1. Make a forum account if you don’t have one yet. Due to logistical reasons, we can only add users who are members of scioly.org
2. There are multiple ways to get involved! First, pick an event from our list of tentative 2023 events in this document.
Events with specific lists attached to them (i.e Rocks and Minerals, Forestry) should follow the lists most recently released by Science Olympiad.
3. Submission guidelines. Related to your chosen event, your submission can be any from the following list:
- A test with an answer key (send the test and key as two separate PDFs). This must be tournament quality and length.
- You may submit notes for an event scheduled for 2022-2023. The notes must be similarly extensive and at least 7,000 words long.
- You may submit a set of images AND build plans for build events. There must be at least 3 images. They can be CAD or actual images.
- You may submit a building guide for build events, like Aia’s Boomilever Guide. Guides must be a minimum of 1,000 words and include diagrams and clear, concise instructions. Tips are good as well.
- You may contribute to Community-Driven Exams, as linked here.
3. Check the Test Exchange to find examples of tests that have been submitted by other users in the past. These are also examples we advise moderators to compare with as well. All tests that are sub-bullets of “SSSS 2022”, or other years, were past resources that have been accepted.
4.You email your resource to summerscioly@scioly.org. The email should be titled [Your scioly.org username]’s [Name of Event] [Type of Resource: test, notes, plans, or guide]; for example, “TheChiScientist’s Dynamic Planet Notes”. The file(s) should be attached to the email in PDF format.
5.The moderators will look over your submission. If it is not approved, we will reply to the email with suggestions on issues and/or improvement. Our moderators will work with you to improve the quality of your submission until it is accepted, usually advising what to look into or study. You should receive a response from within 5 days, but please feel free to remind us (reply the email that you sent) if you don’t. When responding to an email, please click “Reply To All”. This helps significantly with logistics behind the scenes, and not replying all might lead to slowdowns in receiving feedback.
6. Once accepted, you will be provided with details on how to access SSSS resources through your Scioly account via email.
SSSS will end sometime in August (we will announce the end date later on). All resources will all be added to the scioly.org wiki and Test Exchange unless the user requests otherwise. You MUST tell us beforehand if you do not wish to have your notes and/or tests uploaded publicly. ***If you do not tell us anything, we will assume we can upload the tests and notes***
Community-Driven Exams (CDEs)
New to SSSS this year are CDEs! The idea behind this new way to gain admission to SSSS is to provide a way for users that do not feel like they have the time or the knowledge of an event to write a full test for an event to gain access to the resources of SSSS. It involves writing portions or segments of a test for certain events that all add up to approximately the length of a full test. Specifics for the event can be found at the link here.
Moderator Applications:
We need a ton of help to make SSSS work, so here’s your chance to give back to the Scioly.org community and gain significant practice with test writing and reviewing! Be a mod! Fill out the application here.
[*] A willingness to give back to the Scioly.org community. [*] Interest in gaining experience with test writing and reviewing. [*] A Scioly.org Forums account. [*] Availability throughout the summer, from June 15, 2021 to mid-August.[break][/break](Moderators can expect to spend about 5–10 hours a week moderating tests during the height of SSSS.) [*] Responsiveness by email and [url=https://discord.com/]Discord[/url]. (You will be expected to review and reply to submissions within a few days of receipt.) [*] Each moderator will also be expected to create and submit a resource to SSSS.
FAQs:
Have any questions or comments? First, check our new extra detailed list of instructions. We compiled questions from a lot of years in our FAQs in this document.
You can respond to this post, private message BennyTheJett or foreverphysics, email foreverphysics at foreverphysics@scioly.org, or email the mods at summer@scioly.org.
