Scioly.org Event Challenges: Summer 2023

[RasmitDevkota]

In case you haven't heard, SMEC is coming back this summer as SEC!

What is SEC? SEC (Scioly.org Event Challenges) was a monthly series of unofficial competitions held virtually on Scilympiad, run entirely by community members! SEC is individual and anyone can compete or even run an event, meaning you don't have to be on a team or even in school to participate. This time around, it won't be monthly, thus the rebranding: SEC.

How do I participate? If you are interested in competing or running an event, fill out the interest form below as soon as possible so that we can organize event supervisors and finalize a list of events! You should fill out the form by April 16th if you are interested in running an event. You may fill out the form later, but there may not be a guarantee that the event is approved and run. This isn't an immediate commitment, so fill out the form even if you are not sure about participating. If you are not interested for any reason, we would love to hear your feedback on the form anyways and have a section for open feedback.

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Interest form:
Link: https://forms.gle/Mg86f55r8XJ2oAkf9
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Tentative Timeline:

• April 20th - Events finalized, competitor registration opens
• June 1st - Tests finalized
• June 4th - Testing opens
• July 16th - Testing closes, competitor registration closes
• July 20th - Grading due
• July 23rd - Results released

Disclaimer: This timeline is tentative and may shift slightly depending on circumstances. Any updates will be announced in this thread.

SMEC FAQs

• May students in college compete?
  Yes. Students must be 13 years of age or older, and must be in middle school, high school or college. Post-collegiate students MAY compete. Only participants located in the United States may register for this event.

• Will there be prizes?
  Winner of SEC are featured here on the Scioly.org Wiki

• What do I do if I have trouble accessing the Scilympiad system, before or during my test?
  Contact RasmitDevkota via message on the Forums or by email. If you have questions about the event as a whole, contact bernard on Forums or by email.

• What events will be held in future SECs?
  Future SECs will include an event rotation consisting of present and past events. Stay tuned to find out!

• Do I have to participate in Science Olympiad at my own school/homeschool in order to participate in this event?
  No! The only requirement is a Scioly.org account.

Disclaimer: By signing up, you are confirming that you are of 13 years of age or older. We reserve the right to remove underage participants from the event. Moreover, by signing up, your personal information such as your Username, School, and state may be shared with members beyond the Scioly.org staff team for the purposes of scoring and running the event. Your username, school, state, and grade may also be shared to the public for results. We reserve the right to disqualify any participant due to suspicion of ineligibility including, but not limited to age restrictions or suspicion of academic dishonesty. Data submitted through Scilympiad will be stored through Scilympiad. Only participants located in the United States may register for this event.

[RasmitDevkota]

The event slate is here! See the list of events which will be run for this summer's SEC below!

Event Slate:

• Anatomy and Physiology (all systems with emphasis on Cardiovascular/Lymphatic/Excretory)
• Codebusters
• Disease Detectives
• Dynamic Planet (Tectonics)
• Fermi Questions
• Forensics
• Forestry
• Ecology (Competitors are tested on their understanding of various ecosystems and biomes)
• Linguistics (Competitors are tested on their understanding of a variety of linguistics topics, including typology, phonology, semantics, historical linguistics, and cognitive linguistics)
• Microbe Mission (Competitors will answer questions, solve problems, and analyze data pertaining to microbes and microscopes)
• Optics (Competitors are tested on their understanding of geometric and physical optics, such as reflection, refraction, critical angle, electromagnetic and visible spectrum, lenses, and mirrors)
• Rules Manual (NEW - Competitors are tested on their understanding of the Rules Manual)
• Game On
• An event may be added to this list if there is overwhelming interest for it

If you filled out the form to run any of the above events, you will be contacted shortly to confirm your role. If you are interested in helping with any of the above events (or if you have a new event idea!) and have not filled out the form for them, please do complete it now! If you are only interested in competing, you may still fill out the form to register at any time before the final day of testing.

[RasmitDevkota]

Event Modifications are here! Access them here to see what modifications are being made to each event, including rules and topics. Not all event modifications have been finalized, and any future updates will be highlighted in yellow.

If you're interested in helping with Rules Manual, any computer science event, or any other event, please be sure to fill out the interest form linked above. If you are interested in competing, make sure to fill out that form as well!

[RasmitDevkota]

Hi all! If you filled out the interest form, I have generated new Scilympiad Login IDs which you can find in the spreadsheet here. The Scilympiad page is still https://scilympiad.com/smec, despite the name change. After entering your Login ID, the test will prompt you with your password/confirm password, First Name, and Last Name. Your First and Last Name will be the Scioly.org username you gave in the interest form. Please note that the Login IDs you use for official competitions and past SMECs will not work—you must use these new Login IDs to access the events.

Please read the event modifications document before you take any of the tests. Any 2023 event which does not have event modifications will follow the 2023 rules for Division B and/or C as applicable. All events and topics which were not run in the 2023 season have released their own rules document or event modifications.

The testing window will open Sunday, June 4th at 3:00 AM ET / 12:00 AM PT and will close on Monday, July 17th at 3:00 AM ET / 12:00 AM PT, giving approximately 6 weeks to take the tests at any time during the window. Once the window opens, you should see all 13 events in the competitor dashboard. If you do not see any particular event, please message me on the forums or email me and I will add the event(s). Note that the previously-undecided computer science event has been finalized as Game On!

If you or anyone you know may be interested in competing in any events, please fill out the interest form and you should see your new Login ID on the same spreadsheet linked above within 48 hours of submitting the form.

[onshape]

I'm assuming we're allowed to use notes as usual, but would I technically be allowed to use virtual notes (like a google doc for SEC)? I know no one's checking but I just want to make sure.

[RasmitDevkota]

I'm assuming we're allowed to use notes as usual, but would I technically be allowed to use virtual notes (like a google doc for SEC)? I know no one's checking but I just want to make sure.

The Event Modifications document is being updated with whether virtual notes are allowed for each event individually. Since there is no general policy, make sure to check that.

[RasmitDevkota]

The wait is over - results are here! We've compiled event-by-event rankings in the spreadsheet below!

Full Results - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Tests and keys can be found in the folder linked below in case you want to review your events or didn't get to compete—our event supervisors wrote amazing tests that you should totally check out! A few keys are missing but these will be updated very soon. Many events will also have histograms/analyses as well. If you competed in any events, you will be given access shortly to view your own test(s) on Scilympiad by logging in and going to "Graded Tests".

Test Set - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Thank you to everyone who provided input for how SEC should be brought back—we hope you enjoyed (possibly) preparing for and competing in the various events. We're very grateful for all the work put in by our event supervisors and we hope to see event even more volunteers next time! We hope everyone who got to compete enjoyed this experience: be on the lookout for the next Scioly.org Event Challenges!

[RBScioly]

Hello everyone,

For those who don't know, I co-wrote, co-ES-ed, and co-graded the Linguistics test at this competition. And after a long wait, I'm proud to say that the new version of the competition files is ready to be publicly posted!

In the below folder, you will find a new version of the Test and Key files. You will also find files that link to Answer Sheets, Statistics, and Author's Notes!

Without further ado, here are the links!

• SEC Summer 2023 Linguistics Release - all the Linguistics files for this competition
• SEC Summer 2023 Linguistics Scilympiad Files - the original Scilympiad PDFs
• SEC Summer 2023 Linguistics Section Files - the Test, Key, and Answer Sheets files split into seven (7) sections so you can practice one section at a time!
• SEC Summer 2023 Linguistics Updated Files - the more important folder, containing the main Test, Key, and Answer Sheets documents, along with Author's Notes, Rules, and Slides (featuring the three slides of Cover Art, Best Solutions Recognition, and Statistics (a Histogram and the Scatterplot shape)).

Notes:

• Each score was at least 10% of its value apart from all other scores; no scores were close. The correlation between rank and score was -0.97, very line-like.
• Knowing that no one was able to complete the linguistics test (including RBScioly [me]), I will make such tests shorter in the future. I will also remove trivial questions and make the test a little easier where possible. (Yes, I know that most people are beginners to Linguistics. When I was co-writing the test, I was expecting more advanced people to compete (hence the higher difficulty) but unfortunately, that didn't seem to be the case.)
• The top 3 scorers did better than RBScioly [me] in something: one in Section B, one in Section D, and one in the explanation question of Section F (a question I wrote!)
• If you're interested in solving more linguistics puzzles, you can look at the NACLO problem collection, there are hundreds of past problems!
• Kudos to my co-writers for taking the time to create the many fun questions you can find in the test. Anonymous 1 wrote Section B, Questions 25-28 of Section C, and Section G. Anonymous 2 wrote Questions 20-23 of Section C and Section D.
• Contact me if you're interested in test writing for this event in the future (ideally you have some Linguistics experience).
• And most importantly, feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding the Linguistics test (or even linguistics in general )!

Take care Scioly.org community and Linguistics people! I hope you enjoyed the competition and test as much as we did! )
From,
RBScioly