Poorly Run Event Stories

[Panda Weasley]

Ooh I have a lot!
This is my third year doing Experimental Design, and it seems like every year there is something wrong with the event. Last year at State one of the stations involved a helium balloon. It popped of course and they didn't have any back up balloons. We didn't get to that station and don't know whether or not it affected our score. At Regionals the main station involved wheeled vehicles powered by rubber bands. The rubber bands kept popping off the wheels and the car we got had the tendency to veer of to the right. A lot of time was wasted trying to fix the car. The station was only to make a data table and graph, so we didn't even get to write down experimental errors. Our event leader also had a really awesome Russian accent, but it meant that one of the assistants had to re-say all the instructions because some of the other teams couldn't understand her.

My first year for Crime Busters one of the topics we had to know was polymers. At State a portion of the test was identifying the different polymers. One of the rules the event leader told us at the beginning was to take the polymers we test out of the different solutions once we were done testing. When I went over to test the polymers there were tons of different polymers in the solutions because teams weren't taking them out. It was really hard to test them because of this, and the event leader didn't do anything about it.

At Regionals last year the Dynamic Planet test only took 15 minutes to finish. My partner and I started freaking out thinking we were missing part of the test, but then we saw other teams leaving. I am pretty sure that everyone finished it with tons of time to spare. At State the test was one of the practice tests on this wiki, and they only changed 3 of the stations. Me and my partner ended up playing a lot of rock, paper, scissors to kill time.

[notourdivision]

I think I have a few good ones.

1) That year where every Anatomy test we got was completely off topic. This includes questions about the Lymphatic system and the Cardiovascular System, in a year where neither of the systems had anything to do with the original systems.

2) There was a state test for Materials Science which had nothing to do with the rules. We found out that this actually was being factored into our score, and probably contributed to us getting a rather low score at state. There was also an Anatomy test there that had barely anything to do with the rules. This was factored into our score as well, despite the fact that the test was petitioned by many.

3) I wasn't in this event, but I heard they once got a twenty question multiple choice test in Meteorology at regionals. Yikes.

4) That one time they lost a couple of teams tests at the Solon Invitational and, instead of doing anything else, gave all the teams whose tests got lost last place. Because it's our fault that they lost our tests. Mhmm. *insert passive-aggressiveness here*

Eh, I'm sure I'll think of more, but that's all I have for now.

[Unome]

3) I wasn't in this event, but I heard they once got a twenty question multiple choice test in Meteorology at regionals. Yikes.

Speaking of short tests, the Simple Machines test was 7 questions at Regionals and 10 at State (I know Simple Machines doesn't work well with 80 question tests and such, but still...)

[Username1567]

Scrambler at regionals last year. Proctors were baked out of their minds and used a 2x4 as a terminal barrier, winning team won because their egg went over the barrier. Had to argue with them to allow my team measure the distance. It was posted at 9.7 m but we measured at 10 m and some change. Bungee was also a mess. Proctor said it was 2m drop height and our B team measured it around 4.5 m. Honestly, I have no idea how the college got a regional.

[rfscoach]

I don't remember which competition, but the proctor lost half of Water Quality's tests and thought that the remaining tests were all of it.

That was Chattahoochee last year. They did find the tests later and send out the correct medals.

[rfscoach]

2012 Nationals Experimental Design National Event Supervisor planned a food based experiment including peanuts. One of our experimental design kids had a dangerous peanut allergy. She made him wait in the room.....

[samlan16]

This is my third year doing Experimental Design, and it seems like every year there is something wrong with the event. Last year at State one of the stations involved a helium balloon. It popped of course and they didn't have any back up balloons. We didn't get to that station and don't know whether or not it affected our score. At Regionals the main station involved wheeled vehicles powered by rubber bands. The rubber bands kept popping off the wheels and the car we got had the tendency to veer of to the right. A lot of time was wasted trying to fix the car. The station was only to make a data table and graph, so we didn't even get to write down experimental errors. Our event leader also had a really awesome Russian accent, but it meant that one of the assistants had to re-say all the instructions because some of the other teams couldn't understand her.

Where do you compete? That is the most bizarre format for an ExpD test I have ever heard of- almost a poorly run event story of its own.

[Panda Weasley]

This is my third year doing Experimental Design, and it seems like every year there is something wrong with the event. Last year at State one of the stations involved a helium balloon. It popped of course and they didn't have any back up balloons. We didn't get to that station and don't know whether or not it affected our score. At Regionals the main station involved wheeled vehicles powered by rubber bands. The rubber bands kept popping off the wheels and the car we got had the tendency to veer of to the right. A lot of time was wasted trying to fix the car. The station was only to make a data table and graph, so we didn't even get to write down experimental errors. Our event leader also had a really awesome Russian accent, but it meant that one of the assistants had to re-say all the instructions because some of the other teams couldn't understand her.

Where do you compete? That is the most bizarre format for an ExpD test I have ever heard of- almost a poorly run event story of its own.

Where I compete the test can be a full experiment or it can be in stations. Stations can be different parts of experiments or questions about parts of experiments. For example they might give you a short experiment that you only do part of the scientific method with or and example experiment and ask you questions about it.

[Unome]

This is my third year doing Experimental Design, and it seems like every year there is something wrong with the event. Last year at State one of the stations involved a helium balloon. It popped of course and they didn't have any back up balloons. We didn't get to that station and don't know whether or not it affected our score. At Regionals the main station involved wheeled vehicles powered by rubber bands. The rubber bands kept popping off the wheels and the car we got had the tendency to veer of to the right. A lot of time was wasted trying to fix the car. The station was only to make a data table and graph, so we didn't even get to write down experimental errors. Our event leader also had a really awesome Russian accent, but it meant that one of the assistants had to re-say all the instructions because some of the other teams couldn't understand her.

Where do you compete? That is the most bizarre format for an ExpD test I have ever heard of- almost a poorly run event story of its own.

Where I compete the test can be a full experiment or it can be in stations. Stations can be different parts of experiments or questions about parts of experiments. For example they might give you a short experiment that you only do part of the scientific method with or and example experiment and ask you questions about it.

Exp Design in stations...

[humanbeingofearth548]

Woah..Experimental Design...IN STATIONS? That's smart, and a bit dumb at the same time...But a good challange! Though I wouldn't want to do Exp Design in stations, but I'd like to see others do it XD