New Jersey 2014

[SilverNight]

2. It's sad actually. We can only have 7 seniors next year, but we have 10 juniors who just placed at states this year (and 3 more juniors who placed at only regions)....the dilemmas, oh the dilemmas.

3. What other events did you do?
______

And yeah, UQOnyx, we probably should Are you going to be in Div C next year?

2. Oh. I forgot about the 7 senior limit. Shoot, we have 10 too. Ugh.
3. The other event I did for states wasn't great so I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm really good at forestry though haha!
You're a senior, so you're not gonna be at the competition next year, right? You should volunteer to write a test or something next year... Making NJ SciOly better one event at a time.

[nxtscholar]

2. It's sad actually. We can only have 7 seniors next year, but we have 10 juniors who just placed at states this year (and 3 more juniors who placed at only regions)....the dilemmas, oh the dilemmas.

3. What other events did you do?
______

And yeah, UQOnyx, we probably should Are you going to be in Div C next year?

2. Oh. I forgot about the 7 senior limit. Shoot, we have 10 too. Ugh.
3. The other event I did for states wasn't great so I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm really good at forestry though haha!
You're a senior, so you're not gonna be at the competition next year, right? You should volunteer to write a test or something next year... Making NJ SciOly better one event at a time.

Yeah, I was about to say, your school got 1st and 5th in that event. :O

And ok, just cause UCVTS is, in your own words, bad at build events doesn't mean you have to wish I graduate quickly with all my friends.

I'm kidding.

Yeah, I'm actually a junior, so I'll be at the competition next year. Which reminds me, why did you go to Camden Regionals this year?

[SilverNight]

Yeah, I'm actually a junior, so I'll be at the competition next year. Which reminds me, why did you go to Camden Regionals this year?

Whaaat. I could have sworn you said you were graduating or something earlier on. Oh well. I probably just read it wrong.
We went to Camden because, like Ward Melville, my school never sent the money. NJ SciOly contacted us, and we sent it as soon as possible, but by that point, UCC was already filled so we had to go to Camden. D:
I feel like the regionals were really small this year. A lot of schools that usually go to NJIT or UCC had to go to Camden because of space limits. Hillsborough usually went to NJIT but because of space they were moved to UCC. Apparently they got into UCC through a back door too, otherwise they would have ended up in Camden.
WWP-N was at Camden too if I remember correctly. I don't know if it was for the same reason though.

[nxtscholar]

Oh, I was just saying how the 10 juniors who placed at states would graduate next year (including me). Hence, I'm somewhat crying, because my sci oly career is just practically starting

Yeah, I was about to say. UCC is probably the best practice regional leading up to states, not to mention the same county; a lot of good teams usually come (East Brunswick, South Brunswick, Princeton HS, Montgomery, JP Stevens , the Plainsboros, etc.) Hillsborough was a nice touch this year

To be honest, I would've loved to have gone to NJIT (3 build events), but I kinda doubt the competitiveness of that regional. No offense to the NJIT teams, but I have a feeling if we went there with full strength teams, like WWPHS South did a few years ago, Livingston wouldn't be winning all the time. After all, how many NJIT teams are top 10 at states? And when 7 of the top 10 teams this year came from UCC....I wonder what that means

Well, hope to see you at UCC next year!

[SilverNight]

Oh, I was just saying how the 10 juniors who placed at states would graduate next year (including me). Hence, I'm somewhat crying, because my sci oly career is just practically starting

Yeah, I was about to say. UCC is probably the best practice regional leading up to states, not to mention the same county; a lot of good teams usually come (East Brunswick, South Brunswick, Princeton HS, Montgomery, JP Stevens , the Plainsboros, etc.) Hillsborough was a nice touch this year

To be honest, I would've loved to have gone to NJIT (3 build events), but I kinda doubt the competitiveness of that regional. No offense to the NJIT teams, but I have a feeling if we went there with full strength teams, like WWPHS South did a few years ago, Livingston wouldn't be winning all the time. After all, how many NJIT teams are top 10 at states? And when 7 of the top 10 teams this year came from UCC....I wonder what that means

Well, hope to see you at UCC next year!

Ohh next year! I got it now. And I get that statement you said before you said you were kidding. Wow I'm slow. xD

I really really hope we go to UCC next year again. Gotta make sure my school sends the money in like September. I thought about NJIT, what I really liked about it was that (well last year at least, they didn't do it this year), they released their schedule and events so early! If any regional releases their events before I start the season, I might just go there.

[magicalforest]

Haha our building events aren't too strong. We're losing two builders, and apparently there aren't many good builders in the rising classes. Wonderful.

Why is Union so much better? Wasn't there once a Regional held at Princeton University?

Just remember guys to please ask your coaches to contact the state director. If you feel the State tournament could have been improved, just go talk to your coach. Go email them tonight or something (so you don't forget) and say something like, "Hey, could I talk to you on Monday about Science Olympiad?"

Just have your coaches tell her something like, "I feel this event could have been better...". Make sure that they tell the state director that there's a group (Scioly at MIT) willing to write tests for her and resolve a lot of her problems.

If you guys want to make sure others in the NJ SO committee know about your suggestions, make comments on Facebook or Twitter.

[nxtscholar]

@SilverNight: Well, anyways, good luck next year and congrats on the accomplishments this year. We should probably start PM-ing each other, unless the other New Jerseyians find something amusing or helpful in this (long) conversation, lolol

[nxtscholar]

4th at ELG, 3rd in Mission Possible, and 7th in Boomilever isn't that bad....and Scrambler was just bad luck (I saw what happened). In my own opinion and experience, good building is quick to learn. You just need patient folks.

I'm not sure what you mean by why is Union so much more better? Elaborate?

Yeah yeah. Of course. In the mean time, I'll try and get other users/schools on the same page.

[magicalforest]

Whenever I talk to the builders, they always have this glum look on their face "we could have done so much better." And I guess we always compare ourselves to South. Who somehow get top 3 in all their building events. How do they even do that? (General statement, didn't look closely at this year's results...) But I guess the studiers say the same too.

The Scrambler builder was so angry at the building infraction. During the 2nd run, a piece touched the ground, but then the supervisor said "He thought he heard something fall the 1st run too" so neither run was counted. But he was so angry because the supervisor told him AFTER the 2nd run and discounted the 1st run, and he could have made a 10 second adjustment that would have made all the difference... But I'm not too sure about the specifics.

Yeah, I was about to say. UCC is probably the best practice regional leading up to states, not to mention the same county; a lot of good teams usually come (East Brunswick, South Brunswick, Princeton HS, Montgomery, JP Stevens , the Plainsboros, etc.) Hillsborough was a nice touch this year

I was referring to what you said. Why is UCC the best regional?

[nxtscholar]

Whenever I talk to the builders, they always have this glum look on their face "we could have done so much better." And I guess we always compare ourselves to South. Who somehow get top 3 in all their building events. How do they even do that? (General statement, didn't look closely at this year's results...)

The Scrambler builder was so angry at the building infraction. During the 2nd run, a piece touched the ground, but then the supervisor said "He thought he heard something fall the 1st run too" so neither run was counted. But he was so angry because the supervisor told him AFTER the 2nd run and discounted the 1st run, and he could have made a 10 second adjustment that would have made all the difference... But I'm not too sure about the specifics.

Yeah, I was about to say. UCC is probably the best practice regional leading up to states, not to mention the same county; a lot of good teams usually come (East Brunswick, South Brunswick, Princeton HS, Montgomery, JP Stevens , the Plainsboros, etc.) Hillsborough was a nice touch this year

I was referring to what you said. Why is UCC the best regional?

Haha, yeah....it was the fact that in the rules, whatever isn't touching the ground before the launch can't be touching the ground after the launch. Yeah, so they all spent a good minute wasting time arguing whether the first run should have been counted or not, while the allocated 10 minutes ran down. They probably could have done "so much better"; they're Scrambler was one of the most accurate I saw.

And the plot twist? I saw the coordinator telling teams to put paper where their weights would've fell (and hence incur a violation) just cause he didn't like that rule. Well, that pretty much saved 5 teams from being tiered.

Oh, I mean, like I said before, considering that 7 out of the 10 teams that placed in the top ten were from UCC, I'd consider UCC the best regional in terms of competition. I mean, it's all nice and all going to NJIT for instance and dominating the competition, but are you actually learning something? Are you truly seeing where you lie with the rest of the competition? In my opinion, UCC is practically the same thing as states because most of the good teams that you should watch out for at states all go to UCC.