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Circuit Lab B/C: Participants must complete tasks and answer questions about electricity and magnetism.

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It seems the only change in the rules was the addition of the permission to ask questions about internal wiring of breadboards if the lab activity includes it, as stated in rule 3b in Part II. What are the questions limited to? Is it okay to ask questions regarding polarity/bias of diodes, for example?

azboy1910 wrote: ↑September 11th, 2020, 9:13 am It seems the only change in the rules was the addition of the permission to ask questions about internal wiring of breadboards if the lab activity includes it, as stated in rule 3b in Part II. What are the questions limited to? Is it okay to ask questions regarding polarity/bias of diodes, for example?

It's probably heavily dependent on who your event supervisor is, but the wording prompts me to believe that this rule mainly addresses questions related to internal wiring of whatever breadboard contraption is used (probably for the extremely complicated project things that have a breadboard and a huge variety of other components). This rule seems like it came from experience...

azboy1910 wrote: ↑September 11th, 2020, 9:13 am It seems the only change in the rules was the addition of the permission to ask questions about internal wiring of breadboards if the lab activity includes it, as stated in rule 3b in Part II. What are the questions limited to? Is it okay to ask questions regarding polarity/bias of diodes, for example?

To be honest, I think that change was probably to mitigate issues some people must have had with nonstandard breadboard wiring.
I can see it now... a poor competitor hooks an LED to a breadboard in the standard way, only to have it short out.
They ask the ES how the breadboard is wired, only to have the ES reply "You should know how a breadboard is wired, this is a test!"
Time runs out before they have figured out what they did wrong, and they end up finishing last in the event.
They look up the breadboard model later... and discover that the board is wired perpendicular to the standard way.
How were they to have known that? This is outrageous, it's unfair!
Aaaanyway, imo, it'd depend on the ES. Based on my experience, an average ES would probably have no problem with answering a question about diode direction, especially if it isn't readily obvious. A strict adherence to the rules, though... I'd think you could only ask about the breadboard itself, and anything not attached to the breadboard doesn't require an explanation.
Obviously I could be completely off-base, this is just how I read it.

azboy1910 wrote: ↑September 11th, 2020, 9:13 am It seems the only change in the rules was the addition of the permission to ask questions about internal wiring of breadboards if the lab activity includes it, as stated in rule 3b in Part II. What are the questions limited to? Is it okay to ask questions regarding polarity/bias of diodes, for example?

Honestly, as someone who'll write tests, I just see that "rule change" as a joke that's only there so they can say they changed then and it's not gonna change how I write tests at all (not that many invites will have lab portions anyways).

jaggie34 wrote: ↑September 11th, 2020, 7:52 pm

azboy1910 wrote: ↑September 11th, 2020, 9:13 am It seems the only change in the rules was the addition of the permission to ask questions about internal wiring of breadboards if the lab activity includes it, as stated in rule 3b in Part II. What are the questions limited to? Is it okay to ask questions regarding polarity/bias of diodes, for example?

Honestly, as someone who'll write tests, I just see that "rule change" as a joke that's only there so they can say they changed then and it's not gonna change how I write tests at all (not that many invites will have lab portions anyways).

Yeah as Creationist mentioned, it might help if the breadboard isn't standard. I don't see many teams thinking to ask about the internal wiring of a breadboard, even if they didn't know how to use it. When I was proctoring at JT invitational, the basic portion of the lab had teams set up a voltage divider with a resistor and a pot and then raise their hand and call me over to sign off, but half the time I didn't even need to get out of my chair in the front of the room because I could see that all of the legs of the pot were in the same row. I think one team may have asked a question about the breadboard, but it was about how to use it, and not regarding the internal connections, so I just replied that it's part of the event to know how the breadboard works. Basically I don't see this rule being invoked much, but it's convenient in situations like Creationist described.

Does anyone know what +, !, and * mean in Boolean operations and logic gates?

! means not, so !A would mean "not A", which is the same as the A with a line above. I'm not sure * means the same thing tho, and I believe the plus sign (+) is just to add together, like for example A + 1? I'm not exactly sure what you're asking there.

stenopushispidus wrote: ↑September 30th, 2020, 11:16 am Does anyone know what +, !, and * mean in Boolean operations and logic gates?

! means not, * means and, and + means or. A+1 would mean that A is in an or gate with the other input being one, and A*0 would be A in an and gate with the other input as 0. I hope this answers your question.

stenopushispidus wrote: ↑September 30th, 2020, 11:16 am Does anyone know what +, !, and * mean in Boolean operations and logic gates?

Boolean algebra is pretty wierd, so while + would mean "or" as a function, it is also boolean addition (boolean addition and "or" are synonymous). However, since in boolean algebra everything is either 0 or 1, if you have 1+1, the answer would still be 1. The same goes for * which is "and" as well as boolean multiplication.