New York 2013

[syo_astro]

Uh, I think twototwenty/others said that more. Again, I feel like if you really wanted to try it out propose it to the national committee. Also, gosh, I hate post-scioly depressions/incredible exhaustion from work to catch up on.

[Shad160]

Also, gosh, I hate post-scioly depressions/incredible exhaustion from work to catch up on.

Ayeee, now think about how that feels when you know that you're never going to compete again. On the other hand, I no longer feel irresponsible about coming home and falling straight asleep school work? what is that


Oh, and quiz. Small nitpick, but if CLI stands for Central Long Island, wouldn't it make more geographical sense to call our side Central, and Kellenberg's side Western? Also, the hosts for our region are rotating between Syosset, Wantagh, and Division, as far as I know, not Hicksville. It would be nice to have it here, but with the shuffling of coaches we've had/ are still having (4 different combos in 4 years), I don't think Hicksville would want to host it anytime soon. I remember when Division B was held here in 2009 though, that was fun

[Luo]

I think that one potential problem with allotting the largest states more than two nationals spots would be space at the national tournament venue. Already, it's a gargantuan task to house, feed, and seat 120 teams * (15 members + several coaches + alternates) > 2,000 people, and this issue would be exacerbated if more teams were allowed to qualify.

I think of the National Science Olympiad as exactly that - an Olympiad, a middle/high school science version of the actual Olympics. In the Olympics, geographic and cultural diversity is emphasized almost as much as the athletics themselves, and similarly, the National Science Olympiad brings together the best teams from each state, not necessarily the absolute best 60 teams in the country. Just as it may be easier to qualify for the Olympics from a smaller country like, say, Azerbaijan, than it is to qualify from the United States, it may be easier to qualify for the National Science Olympiad from a smaller state than from a state like New York or California. I believe that this disparity, while admittedly potentially disappointing for students in larger or more competitive states, has its merits and is appropriate.

Potential bias: I live in a mid-sized state that is about average in terms of number of national spots per registered team.

[geminicross]

Yeah, the answer you'll probably get is:

"Sci Oly is a competition that is made to represent the best each state has to offer. Not necessarily the best teams the nation has to offer"

[paleonaps]

Luo, you bring up excellent points. But I just think that representation should be appropriate for the level of skill and competition found in each state. By no means should any state be barred from competing, but I think that the system of choosing how many teams go to Nationals is inadequate. I actually like the House of Representative metaphor, and I'm going to continue it:

Our House is capped at 435 members. As populations fluctuate between states, the number of representative from each state will vary, but there is technically no limit on the number of representatives a state can have. If everyone from every state except for New York moved to California, then California would have 409 representatives, and New York would retain its 27. Each district is supposed to contain about 630,000 people, if memory serves. Some entire states have less than that number - Vermont and Wyoming are good examples (and may be the only two) - but they still get a representative, because it would be absurd for them not to.

Right now, Science Olympiad Nationals is capped at 60 teams. New teams are forming all the time, and the number of teams some states can send does vary (hello Minnesota), but the number of teams a state can send it capped at 2. It seems to be that a state begins to qualify for two teams when it contains about 90 teams total. A state with 16 teams (like New Hampshire) and a state with 80 teams (like Montana) sends 1 team to Nats. A state with 126 teams (like Washington) sends 2 to Nats, as does a state with 150 teams (like Indiana). But Ohio (with 273 teams), Pennsylvania (with 298 teams), North Carolina (467 teams), California (568 teams total), and New York (582 teams) all send 2 teams as well. No matter what, however, a small state like Arkansas or New Hampshire can send a team to Nationals.

I don't have a problem with a two-tiered ranking system, with states with above X teams getting 2 national spots and those below getting 1. It's a very simple solution to this problem. But, if nothing else, the cutoff is too low. 126 does not equal 582. I'm too tired to compute a better value now, but it should ideally make it so that both groups have a more similar number of teams per state.

My preferred solution would be to raise the cap. I think that a few more teams could be accommodated. Even if it were raised to 70, that's ten more teams. NY and CA could send four or more apiece, as could North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

geminicross, I understand that logic. But it's flawed. If every state got two teams (like the Senate) or one team, then that would be a valid statement. But you can't mix House and Senate systems. Either it's proportional representation, or equal representation. The two are mutually exclusive.

[Shad160]

I think of the National Science Olympiad as exactly that - an Olympiad, a middle/high school science version of the actual Olympics. In the Olympics, geographic and cultural diversity is emphasized almost as much as the athletics themselves, and similarly, the National Science Olympiad brings together the best teams from each state, not necessarily the absolute best 60 teams in the country. Just as it may be easier to qualify for the Olympics from a smaller country like, say, Azerbaijan, than it is to qualify from the United States, it may be easier to qualify for the National Science Olympiad from a smaller state than from a state like New York or California. I believe that this disparity, while admittedly potentially disappointing for students in larger or more competitive states, has its merits and is appropriate.

The United States also sends many more representatives to the Olympics than a country like Azerbaijan to compensate for the size and competition, though, so that can be analogous to New York sending an extra team because of its size and competition

[EastStroudsburg13]

Once more:

Yeah, the answer you'll probably get is:

"Sci Oly is a competition that is made to represent the best each state has to offer. Not necessarily the best teams the nation has to offer"

I don't think the object was, or will ever be, equal representation. This is not the object of the National Science Olympiad. One possible solution would be to add 5 teams per division, which would at least minimize the amount of added stress, and give those 5 slots to the top 5 states in terms of participation. However, I think this would get other borderline states upset, and they would want to have it expanded to 70, then 75, etc. This argument will always be made no matter what the setup is by a team that feels it should have a better chance at making nationals.

Once more, the object of Nationals is NOT to have the best schools in the nation, but have the best schools from each state. So states like Arkansas and Oklahoma CAN and SHOULD be able to send a team to nationals, even if they struggle once they get there. And finally, it's not black and white. That's oversimplifying it by far. You can have a mix of both very easily.

[caseyotis]

If the issue is more stress, why don't the nationals for Div. B and C take place on different dates? *shrug*

Right now, I think there's a lot of bias in this thread and it should be moved to a new topic, which could be put in the nationals forum. I already gave my opinion, which is that (like paleo said) it's unfair for NY to send 2 teams when it has over 550 participants, when some states that also send two teams aren't even at 200. I want to hear different perspectives from regular users on here, and it's difficult when this thread takes place in the New York state forum.

[physicsphan]

If the issue is more stress, why don't the nationals for Div. B and C take place on different dates? *shrug*

Right now, I think there's a lot of bias in this thread and it should be moved to a new topic, which could be put in the nationals forum. I already gave my opinion, which is that (like paleo said) it's unfair for NY to send 2 teams when it has over 550 participants, when some states that also send two teams aren't even at 200. I want to hear different perspectives from regular users on here, and it's difficult when this thread takes place in the New York state forum.

Read in the Archive the 2012-National-"States Sending Two Teams" posts. There are 8 pages of the opinion of others on this topic. http://www.scioly.org/phpBB3/viewtopic. ... &start=105

Also I would think that for all of the volunteers and organizers that scheduling two different competitions on two different dates might be the most stressful option.

[JTMess]

New York unfortunately never released scores from the tech events...so I was wondering in anyone knows the 2,3,4,5,or 6 robot scores (anyone from East Rochester, The Mount Academy, or Jamesville-DeWitt maybe?) and the 2,3,4,5,6 gravity scores and te winning boom score? Any info on this would be awesome and I'm sure there are lots who could make good use of it!