Technical Problem Solving

[Jonny_Jonny]

no, using angles, and not measuring the actual height, try and figure out the angle and height

[binary010101]

In that case, I'd need a plumb line, too.

[dudeincolorado]

you can use tangent and all that fun stuff

[binary010101]

Yep. Sohcahtoa.

[adam124218]

By the way, the rules do tell you what sensors and stuff you need to be able to use. While things like photo-gates are going to be expensive, most schools are going to have thermometers and voltage sensors.

How is everyone preparing for this event? My impulse is to learn how to use all of the possible probes and then to review basic science knowledge so as to be ready for basically anything.

[Valpo Towers and Trebs]

We prepared by doing some basic labs that involved scientific problem solving. For one of them our coach set up that we were each given a piece of paper, scissors and a ruler. We were then allowed to weigh the peice of paper on a digital scale and record the mass. Then we were told to cut an isosceles triangle out of the paper that weighed exactly .5 g using just the ruler and scissors.

Mostly just stuff like that and learning how to used standard deviation and basic probs. For competition we are just having two experienced people compete that should be able to deal with whatever they give us.

[jazzy009]

I havent done this event yet but does it involve a lot of statistics? our team has only had it twice and it seemed pretty unpredictable from what ive heard. if it's like the paper thing where you cut the iso. triangle then that might help. I have to help prepare my teammates for this event for state (thats why im asking)

[Jonny_Jonny]

What are we supposed to do for this event

[adam124218]

I havent done this event yet but does it involve a lot of statistics? our team has only had it twice and it seemed pretty unpredictable from what ive heard. if it's like the paper thing where you cut the iso. triangle then that might help. I have to help prepare my teammates for this event for state (thats why im asking)

The isosceles triangle problem isn't exactly statistics--that's closer to physics or geometry. It seems very unlikely that you'll need statistics for this, given that I think science olympiad assumes that the average high-school has not taken Stats. The only things you might need to know are mean and standard deviation, which are just a couple of formulas you'd have to look up.

[Freak of Science]

At the invitational (Northmont High School, Ohio) for this event, it was really not what I expected.

The test consisted of two AP Chemistry math problems (specific heat and acid-base) and two AP Physics math problems (pendulum motion and trajectory).

Pendulum motion and trajectory may not sound hard, but, trust me, they make it hard.


Edit: On top of that, two of the questions asked for standard deviation, which was really impossible to perform without a pre-programmed calculator. Just how hard do they want this event to be?