User:AstroClarinet
| AstroClarinet | |
|---|---|
| General Information | |
| Years in SO | 8 |
| Division | D |
| Scioly.org Information | |
| Forum profile | AstroClarinet |
| Medals | |
| Total medals | 46
|
Competitive career is over 〒▽〒
Tests & Errata
2023 Science Olympiad at Cornell Invitational Astronomy: Link forthcoming (hopefully). Difficulty designed to be somewhere around regionals-level, though in the end, I think it was longer and more challenging than the average regionals test.
2020 SSSS Astronomy (listed as User Submitted): test key
- Like with other Astronomy tests, the method of retrieving the FITS file for the JS9 section no longer works. Copy the link address of this link, skip steps 2-6, and follow step 7. link
2014-2015 (Division A)
| Gold | AstroClarinet has received a Gold medal in an event at Div A Regionals. |
This was my first year in Science Olympiad, in 4th grade. I somehow only competed in one event ("Sky Quest") which was basic astronomy stuff. The next year there was no team for my elementary school so I couldn't compete.
2016-2017 (Division B)
| Gold | AstroClarinet has received a Gold medal in Ecology at Div B Regionals. |
| Gold | AstroClarinet has received a Gold medal in Microbe Mission at Div B Regionals. |
My first year in "real" Science Olympiad; Division B. This was the one year I didn't get medals in every event (why is Mission Possible so hard‽). Looking back on my note sheets now, I can't believe I got first place in 2 events. At regionals, our team placed second. We went to states and earned 0 medals. My school's team had only been founded the year before, so we were still getting the hang of things.
- Ecology: We did well in this event, with a 1st place at regionals and a 23rd place at states. This set us up for what would happen next year.
- Microbe Mission: I had a good partner in this event, so we did great. I was introduced by my partner (or I introduced to him? I can't remember) to what would become my preferred style for notes sheets (highlighting! highlighting!). At states we got 15th place, which was very close to placing.
- Mission Possible: At regionals, we completely failed; I finished our device the night before and we got a lot of touch penalties. By states we had learned our lesson and came prepared. Although one of the simple machines didn't work correctly, it somehow triggered another machine further down the line, so many parts were skipped but we still got to the end. It actually ended up being one of our best events at states, at 27th place.
2017-2018 (Division B)
| Gold | AstroClarinet has received a Gold medal in Ecology at Div B Regionals. |
| Gold | AstroClarinet has received a Gold medal in Optics at Div B Regionals. |
| Silver | AstroClarinet has received a Silver medal in Towers at Div B Regionals. |
| Gold | AstroClarinet has received a Gold medal in Ecology at Div B States. |
| 9th | AstroClarinet has received a 9th place medal in Optics at Div B States. |
| 10th | AstroClarinet has received a 10th place medal in Towers at Div B States. |
As I was now a somewhat experienced competitor, I was able to do much better in this year. I placed in all of my events at both regionals and states. Our team placed 2nd at regionals (again) and 18th at states (only 8 places away from being top 10!).
- Ecology: Since I had competed in this the previous year, we could focus on honing our knowledge in the more difficult topics. I had a great partner and even though we did terrible on practice tests, and thought we had done terrible on the states test, we got 1st. This was the first time our team had placed, and gotten a first place medal, at states. Needless to say, states that year was an incredible experience.
- Optics: This was my first lab event, so I was taken by surprise when we had to actually do labs at the competitions (crazy, I know). It was also my first binder event. States was pretty chaotic, and I have a suspicion that both the event supervisor and myself made mistakes which led to us accidentally getting a medal. Lesson learned? If something looks like it might give you a lot of points when you should be having points taken away, point it out.
- Towers: After dealing with Mission Possible, I knew that I had to be careful with build events. I gave up a lot of lunchtime to work on building the towers, and this paid off in the end. We didn't build a lot of towers, and they weren't spectacular towers, but the one we built for states held all 15 kg (not expected at all) and weighed 17 g, meaning we had a score around 1200.
2018-2019 (Division B)
| Gold | AstroClarinet has received a Gold medal in Solar System at Div B Regionals. |
| Gold | AstroClarinet has received a Gold medal in Density Lab at Div B Regionals. |
| Bronze | AstroClarinet has received a Bronze medal in Boomilever at Div B Regionals. |
| Gold | AstroClarinet has received a Gold medal in Solar System at Div B States. |
| 7th | AstroClarinet has received a 7th place medal in Density Lab at Div B States. |
| 6th | AstroClarinet has received a 6th place medal in Boomilever at Div B States. |
This was my last year in Division B, and I made it count. The length and depth of my notes sheets increased substantially. Our team was only 1 point from tying for 1st with our rival at regionals, and we placed 18th (again) at states. Once again, I got a 1st place medal at states, making it the second 1st place medal earned by our team at states. I was also competing in the National History Day competition on the day of states, which made things interesting (fortunately they were in the same city).
- Solar System: I was excited for this event, because I was finally going to do an astronomy event. Regionals was astonishingly easy due to the amount of information I had studied- we only missed around 2 questions, and the test took us only 20 minutes. Of course, this meant we were shocked when we were presented with a relatively impossible test at states. We kind of didn't know how to do much of the math, which made up about half the test, and we were given unfamiliar scientific calculators to use. Still, we came through with a lot of lucky guessing, and finished with 1st place.
- Density Lab: This was a confusing event because of how deceptively simple it was on the surface. The variety of labs that could be presented made it difficult for us to prepare, and I honestly think I would have done much better in this had I taken a math-based science class beforehand (I had no idea how to approach math in science until high school). Regionals was somewhat easy, but we were one of the few teams that didn't finish the test at states (though we still somehow placed).
- Boomilever: Experience from towers helped me a lot in this event, though I did't truly know how to work with balsa until I had done boomilever. The lack of a bonus and the simpler rules gave us less of an advantage over other teams. We were underprepared at regionals, and guessed that our boom would hold 10 kg when it only held about 4 (it was only our 3rd boom). A lot more sacrificed time led to us building 10 more booms and optimizing our design, though we did not feel very confident going into states (we had never built what we consider a "really good" boom). Fortunately for us, our states boom did an excellent job, holding about 13 kg and only weighing 15 g, leading to a score of 866.
2019-2020 (Division C)
My events this year were Astronomy, Designer Genes, and Water Quality. I had three really good partners (I reunited with my friend from Ecology for Designer Genes) so I was actually able to split up the content rather than cover everything. I was prevented from attending regionals three times: First, I was sick with the flu on the week of regionals. Then, it snowed and regionals was postponed to a later date. This later date was then cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020-2021 (Division C)
| Event | NC Mock | Duke2 | Regionals3 | States |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Astronomy | 1 | 7 | 1 | 24 |
| Designer Genes | 5 | 25 | 1 | 34 |
| Water Quality | 8 | 46 | 1 | 2 |
| Digital Structures | 321 | 37 | 2 | 11 |
1Must have not hit the submit button fast enough... plus the boomi didn't even work, see the bottom of the SkyCiv page for what the issue was
2At Duke the medal placements are not great by most people's standards, but this was the first time our team attended a competitive invitational, and that was an accomplishment in itself.
3I also was a filler in two events, but I didn't help much at all so I won't put those up here. Also the division B team that I'd previously been on absolutely obliterated the competition while our team did okayish.
4Because NCSSM and Enloe are OP (also because I only learned the redshift-time dilation formula 30 minutes before the astro test, and I thought the t0 in the formula in C&O meant the original time at the emission of the light, not even stopping to think what the e in te in the formula meant...)
State tournament goals:
Mission: beat Enloe - success
Mission: beat NCSSM - success (not in the event I expected)
Mission: 1st place - failure (oh well)
Mission: do ok in digistructures - failure
Team mission: beat the teams who beat us at regionals - success
Team mission: increase states placement - close, but a failure
Team mission: increase number of states medals - failure
Team mission: keep the team alive completely remotely - success
I also received a MY SO medal, which is a good thing I guess.
2021-2022 (Division C)
I have abandoned my home high school team (sorry teammates) and going to a different high school
A little weird being on the same team as lots of people here that I've competed against... (lesson: never demonize other teams in your head. ever. you never know if the person who you lost to or beat later becomes one of the kindest people you know.)
| Event | School tryouts 1 | School tryouts 2 | Duke | Regionals | States | Nationals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Astronomy | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| Remote Sensing | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Green Generation | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 7 |
| Cell Biology | 1 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 21 |
So far:
-Astro is doing fine? I still don't understand orbital mechanics or binaries lol. & the streak kind of ended due to a painful math section at states combined with stations
-Don't know what I'm doing in remote sensing or green gen
-Getting carried in cell bio but trying my best to learn
-the number of topics I have covered for each event this year is abysmally low
-at least the team is doing well, and this is the first time I've been on a team to successfully beat our rivals at regionals states! yay
nationals reaction: what on earth
2022-2023 (Division C)
FINAL SEASON!!!
Captain of a very very cool team with some very very cool other captains!
We made it through the season. There was a bit of roughness and many complications, but finally we went to an in-person nationals! Yay!
Eventful things this year:
- Writing/editing so many tryout tests, oh my goodness that was harder than expected even with getting tests from CSE
- Thinking I could finally go back down to 3 events due to the load of work from being a captain, but then oh no necessary team rearrangement complications (ah well green gen still went fine considering)
- Completing my evolution to "bio nerd" by studying a lot for cell bio and finding it way too cool even though I'm a physics person, and being able to pull my own weight in it
- FIRST PLACE ASTRO AT STATES AHHHHHHHHHHHHH WE DID IT FINALLY AFTER 4 YEARS
- Looking after a bunch of very chaotic guys at nationals in Kansas (thank goodness we made it through that)
- Coaches/captains at nationals: ok so we need y'all to touch grass because we aren't in Kansas to study --> 1 minute later "look here's a picture of us outside" [very clearly taken against a window] --> nope --> 10 minutes later [photoshopped picture of people outside]
- Doing better in remote sensing again than in astro for some reason
- Going out and freezing at the Wichita botanical gardens to tag along with the forestry folks the day before the competition, because why would I ever turn down a chance to hang out with them and watch them obsess over trees
- Finally meeting members of the A-Team (User:RobertYL et al.)
Good way to finish my career as a competitor. Now for Division D.
| Event | Duke | Regionals | States | Nationals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Astronomy | 2 | 2 | 1 | 8 |
| Remote Sensing | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Green Generation | n/a | n/a | 3 | 12 |
| Cell Biology | 2 | 4 | 1 | 3 |
Favorite Events
- Astronomy
- Solar System
- Remote Sensing
- Ecology
- Boomilever/Towers/DigiStructures
- Cell Bio
- Water Quality
- Green Generation
- Designer Genes
- Density Lab
- Microbe Mission
- Optics
- Other earth science events
- Other life science events
- Other physics events
- Other chemistry events
- Other balsa build events
- Other build events
- Inquiry events
- Mission Possible
Other things I do
As you can probably infer by my username, I play clarinet in my school's wind ensemble and regularly participate in All-County and All-District Bands (except during the times regionals & the snow date fall on the same day, and then it snows... :( ). Therefore, I mostly listen to classical and wind band music. I'm a life scout and currently working (procrastinating) on my Eagle Project (update: it's done, but I have to get my other requirements done while living away from home somehow) My major interest in science is astronomy, and my dream is to become an astronomer.
Life lessons stuff
Since I don't know where else to put this
- When fighting against what's wrong, don't do more wrong
- Don't make the fundamental attribution error
- Don't succumb to groupthink & social loafing
- Be yourself
Quotes
“What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?” ― F. Sherwood Rowland
“We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” ― Carl Sagan
“Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.” ― Carl Sagan
"Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet." ― Stephen Hawking
"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS – EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE." ― The Aliens, 2010: Odyssey Two
“If the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be secure against lethal poisons distributed either by private individuals or by public officials, it is surely only because our forefathers, despite their considerable wisdom and foresight, could conceive of no such problem.” ― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring