Metric Mastery

Metric Mastery
Type	Nature of Science
Category	Lab
Description	Teams will estimate and then measure properties of identical objects including mass, area, volume, density, force, distance, time, and temperature. Teams will also perform metric unit conversions.
Event Information
Participants	2
Allowed Resources	Two Class II calculators (for use only during Section Three)
Approx. Time	50 minutes
History
First Appearance	1994
Latest Appearance	2026
Rotates	Yes
Forum Threads
2026 2025 2014 2013
Question Marathon Threads
2025
Official Resources
Website	www.soinc.org/metric-mastery-b
Division B Results
1st Sierra Vista Middle School 2nd Kennedy Middle School 3rd Solon Middle School
Division C Results
1st Solon High School 2nd North Central High School 3rd McIntosh High School

Metric Mastery is a Division B event for the 2026 season which tests the students' ability to quickly and accurately estimate and measure the physical properties of objects in metric units. Properties to be estimated and measured can include mass, volume, density, area, force, distance, time, and temperature.

This will be a station-based event. In the first part of the competition, students will estimate the properties asked for of an object in or in less than about 30 seconds, then move to the next station when they are given directions to do so. In the second part of the competition, students will be given 5 minutes to complete 5 metric unit conversion problems. In the third part, students will move back through the same stations with measuring tools supplied by the event supervisor, and accurately measure the objects in about 60 seconds.

During the years between 1984 and 1993, the event was held as Measurement and Metric Estimation. These events were later combined in 1994 to the event Metric Mastery.

General Information

The only outside materials students are allowed to bring into the event are two Class II calculators. Writing utensils will be provided by the event supervisor, as well as measuring devices for Part Three.

Metric Properties

The following are the common properties that will be used in this event. Some properties may be estimated or measured directly, while other properties require estimating or measuring multiple properties and calculating a value from those. This list is not comprehensive; other properties are possible.

Metric Properties

Property	Base Unit	Calculated?
Mass	grams (g)	No
Distance	meters (m)	No
Area	square meters ($m^2$)	Yes
Volume	cubic meters ($m^3$)	Yes
Density	kilograms per cubic meter ($\frac{kg}{m^3}$)	Yes
Force	newtons (N)	No
Time	seconds (s)	No
Velocity	meters per second ($\frac{m}{s}$)	Yes
Temperature	degrees Celsius (°C)	No

The number of stations that involve calculated properties varies by competition level. At regional competitions, no more than 20% of stations should involve calculated properties, but this increases to between 20-40% at state competitions and 40-60% at nationals.

The 2025 season's rules do not require students to adhere to the Significant Figures policy, though previous iterations of the event have required it.

Part One: Estimate

In the estimation part of the event, students must estimate the measurements of objects provided by the supervisor. There will usually be between 15-25 stations in this part. The estimations will vary among all of the different properties.

• Time Limit Expectations
  • (1) Regional Tournaments will be a minimum of 60 seconds per station
  • (2) State Tournaments will be a minimum of 45 seconds per station
  • (3) National Tournaments will be a minimum of 30 seconds per station
• Students may not use any tools to help them estimate.
  • Such "tools" include watches, writing implements, electronic devices, notes, fingers, pieces of paper, pencils, clothing, etc. In the case that some things are impossible to leave behind (fingers, clothing), they cannot be utilized in the competition.
• The event supervisor will provide pencils.
• Participants must not touch or feel any of the objects, unless the station directions specifically state the object may be touched. Participants must be allowed to “heft” an object for estimated masses.
• Use correct units. The supervisor will identify which units to use.
• Follow the correct rotation order.
• No calculators are allowed during this part.

Helpful Tips

• Practice is key for this event, but especially for this part! Without practice it will be very hard to estimate the measurements to any great deal of accuracy. Practice will let you see how the appearance of certain objects relates to what they actually measure. Also, it will give you a reference point that you can use in competition (i.e. if an object looks shorter than an object you worked with in practice, you know that the length must be smaller)
• Practice with lots of areas and volumes. This will help you be faster in quickly estimating the calculations at the competition.
• If they give you a sphere or something else that uses $\pi$ in the calculation, replace it with a 3. It will be a lot easier to calculate in your head and you will be close enough to the correct value.
• Most students will not begin at the first station, they might start at any number. Be sure to start at the correct station on the answer sheet.
• Quick conversion: if you can estimate mass well but are not as good at estimating force, you can divide grams by 100 or multiply kg by 10 to roughly get Newtons. You will automatically be off by 2%; however, if their mass estimate is very accurate, they may still be within 5% of the correct measurement of force.

Scoring

Scoring for Part One is based on the accuracy of the measurement to a pre-determined measured value taken by the event supervisor:

For Regionals:

• 5 points if within 15% of measured value
• 3 points if within 30% of measured value
• 1 point if within 45% of measured value
• Not in any of the above, 0

For States:

• 5 points if within 10% of measured value
• 3 points if within 20% of measured value
• 1 point if within 30% of measured value
• Not in any of the above, 0

For Nationals:

• 5 points if within 5% of measured value
• 3 points if within 10% of measured value
• 1 point if within 15% of measured value
• Not in any of the above, 0
  • If in one of the categories, only points for that category are awarded. For example, if you land within 3%, you only get 5 points. You do not get 5+3+1 points.

Part Two: Metric Unit Conversion

• After Part One, students will be given 5 minutes to solve 5 metric unit conversion problems.
• Students will be asked to convert from metric to metric, and will not be required to convert from one measurement system to another. (e.g. centimeters to inches)
• Conversions typically follow the lines of converting a four or more digit number from a minuscule digit to a large digit, or vise versa.

    Ex. "Convert 3.598x10^3 picometers to kilometers."

Helpful Tips

• Don't forget your dimensions (e.g., there are 10 decimeters in a meter, but there are 100 square decimeters in a square meter, and 1,000 cubic decimeters in a cubic meter)
• To perform a conversion, one easy way is to multiply the number they give you by the multiplier of the old unit divided by the multiplier of the new unit. Using the example above:

$3.598\times 10^{3}pm*\frac{10^{-12}}{10^3}=3.598\times 10^3*10^{-15}=3.598\times 10^{-12}km$

• Since scientific notation always uses a base of 10, you can do this in your head very easily because you can subtract the exponent of the new unit from the exponent of the old unit to get the exponent you need to multiply by. So in the above example, you would take -12 (the exponent for pico) and then subtract 3 (the exponent for kilo) from it. Then when you multiply 10^3 by 10^-15, all you need to do is add the exponents to get 10^-12, which will give you 3.598x10^-12. In almost all conversions, you are only changing the exponent, so you are really only adding and subtracting exponents most of the time.
• To summarize exponent operations:

• • $10^a\times 10^b=10^{a+b}$

• • $\frac{10^a}{10^b}=10^{a-b}$

Special Units

• A metric ton or tonne is 1000 kilograms, or 1 megagram.
• A Kelvin is degrees Celsius plus 273.15.

Metric Prefix Table

Metric Prefixes

Prefix	Symbol	Multiplier
quetta	Q	$10^{30}$
ronna	R	$10^{27}$
yotta	Y	$10^{24}$
zetta	Z	$10^{21}$
exa	E	$10^{18}$
peta	P	$10^{15}$
tera	T	$10^{12}$
giga	G	$10^9$
mega	M	$10^6$
kilo	k	$10^3$
hecto	h	$10^2$
deca (also deka)	da	$10^1$
---	---	$10^0$
deci	d	$10^{-1}$
centi	c	$10^{-2}$
milli	m	$10^{-3}$
micro	$\mu$	$10^{-6}$
nano	n	$10^{-9}$
pico	p	$10^{-12}$
femto	f	$10^{-15}$
atto	a	$10^{-18}$
zepto	z	$10^{-21}$
yocto	y	$10^{-24}$
ronto	r	$10^{-27}$
quecto	q	$10^{-30}$

Scoring

• Answers must have the correct unit and correct value to receive points.
• Ideally, answers should have the same number of significant digits as the value teams were given.
• Correct answers receive 5 points.

Part Three: Measure

In the measurement part, students will physically measure the various properties of the same or identical objects as given in Part One. Like the first part, there will typically be between 15-25 stations. Both students are allowed a non-programmable calculator (Class II) for this section.

• Time Limit Expectations
  • (1) Regional Tournaments will be a minimum of 90 seconds per station
  • (2) State Tournaments will be a minimum of 75 seconds per station
  • (3) National Tournaments will be a minimum of 60 seconds per station
• Use correct units. The supervisor will identify which units to use.
• Measure to the precision of the instrument plus one estimated digit.
• Follow the correct rotation order. The first station you visit may not necessarily be number one on your paper. You could start at any number.

Helpful Tips

• Students must realize that not all graduated cylinders are the same, nor are all rulers, or any other measurement instrument. They should practice determining what degree of precision to include in their measurements.
• Students should practice using a variety of measuring instruments.
  • Practice using a vernier scale such as seen on calipers.
  • Practice using a vernier caliper to find internal diameter (ID), outside diameter (OD) and depth.
  • Practice using micrometers.
  • Practice using instruments with a reversed scale such as on some pipettes.
  • Practice using double pan or Harvard Trip balances.
  • Practice calculating mass by using tare mass (measuring the mass of an empty container and then subtracting it from the mass of the container and the substance it contains).
• Although it is a good practice to calibrate instruments before they make measurements, do not assume you should at a competition. Check with an event supervisor before adjusting any instrument!
• Evaluate rulers and meter sticks carefully before you begin measurement, if there isn't a true 0, start measurement at 1 and then subtract 1 from the measurement.

Scoring

• Scoring varies by tournament level:
  • Regionals:
    • 5 points if within +/- 15 of Estimated Digit
    • 3 points if within +/- 20 of Estimated Digit
    • 1 point if within +/- 25 of Estimated Digit
  • States:
    • 5 points if within +/- 12 of Estimated Digit
    • 3 points if within +/- 17 of Estimated Digit
    • 1 point if within +/- 22 of Estimated Digit
  • Nationals:
    • 5 points if within +/- 10 of Estimated Digit
    • 3 points if within +/- 15 of Estimated Digit
    • 1 point if within +/- 20 of Estimated Digit
• Example: At a regional tournament the Supervisor measured the width of a page as 209.1 mm using a ruler whose smallest divisions are 1.0 mm.
  • Five points would be awarded for a measurement between 207.6 mm and 210.6 mm
  • Three points for a measurement between 206.1 mm and 212.1 mm
  • One point for a measurement between 204.6 mm and 213.6 mm.
  • No points would be awarded for a measurement outside of 204.6 mm and 213.6 mm. Calculated Measurements: Measurements that require formula calculations will be scored using the same direct measurement scoring ranges provided above. iii. Calculated measurements are limited to area and volume of polygons/polyhedrons, density of contained liquids, solids, and powders, melting and boiling points of water, force, mechanical energy, displacement of liquid by a solid, time constants/periods of simple harmonic motion, mass of solids and liquids, and spring constants.
• Calculated Measurements: Measurements that require formula calculations will be scored using the same direct measurement scoring ranges provided above. These are limited to area and volume of polygons/polyhedrons, density of contained liquids, solids, and powders, melting and boiling points of water, force, mechanical energy, displacement of liquid by a solid, time constants/periods of simple harmonic motion, mass of solids and liquids, and spring constants.

Other Precautions

Make sure to:

• return measuring devices to their original position
• clean up any spills
• never alter equipment without first asking an event supervisor (zeroing a balance, etc.-can result in disqualification)

Any of these violations may result in a point penalty for each time they occur.

Practice and Resources

Plastic vernier calipers can be picked up at many hardware stores. Instrument help online: There are many sites available to learning how to use tools such as a micrometer or a vernier caliper. If you use Google to search for a "vernier scale", you will find many usable sites.

A good way to practice this event is to just estimate and measure everything in sight. Make sure to give yourself units that objects wouldn't usually be measured in (e.g. a door in cm and a doorknob in km) and hard properties (e.g. mass, density, force, etc.)!

Links

• Estimation Practice Game
• How to use a micrometer
• How to read a Vernier caliper and micrometer
• More about the 2007 event
• Science Olympiad policy on significant figures