2015 National Tournament: University of Nebraska

[rfscoach]

Happy Birthday Unome! 4th in Bio Process, 5th in Fossils, 6th in Simple Machines. Nice birthday.

[c-padd1999]

Does anyone have the results from Division C?

[zyzzyva980]

Right before the awards ceremony began, I put together some prop bets for the folks on chat, to keep things exciting. The results are below. If you guys would want to do something like this on a larger scale next year, just let me know.

PROP BET RESULTS:
OVER/UNDER: Peak number of IRC users during the ceremony (50)
Result: UNDER (36)

OVER/UNDER: Combined medals for Solon MS and Mentor HS (20)
Result: UNDER (19)

OVER/UNDER: Combined placement of California C teams (6)
Result: UNDER (3)

OVER/UNDER: Delay for beginning of C awards (15 minutes)
Result: OVER (26 minutes)

OVER/UNDER: Combined score of B and C champions (431)
Result: UNDER (365)

Will the C champion be from NEW YORK, PENNSYLVANIA, or OHIO?
Result: NO (California)

OVER/UNDER: Number of times the B champion had won nationals prior to this year (2)
Result: OVER (6)

Will either occur: Yankton MS breaks the top 40 or Yankton HS breaks the top 50
Result: YES (Yankton HS: 50th)

OVER/UNDER: Best finish for an Arkansas team (58th)
Result: OVER (60th -- sorry, Arkansas)

We had a five-way tie for first, with five people (iwonder, Kokonilly, watermydoing14, AlphaTauri, and myself) all correctly guessing 7 of the 9 questions. However, the tiebreaker was to predict the final combined score of the B and C champions. Everyone guessed way too high, but AlphaTauri missed the least by guessing 400. So, your prop bet champion for this year's SONT is AlphaTauri!

(She wins nothing.)

[RontgensWallaby]

Has there ever been a team that has gotten a better place at Nats than we have that didn't place in any events? I'm looking right now...

[samlan16]

And the Parade of States was a little sad for the teams at the beginning. Marching out to empty seats (and the sad music...) was kind of depressing. Also, it took forever for everyone to get seated and there was this massive bottleneck in the middle as a result. Because of that, there were also long pauses between each school getting called out, and a lot of the crowd's energy was lost when the guest speakers finally came. Dr. Gay was cool; the music and the videos were really awkward. All in all, next time, please, don't have all 15 people marching. Plus, if a state has two teams each, don't try to cram all four of them into one room.

I would also like to add to this that whoever coordinates the music should not only avoid depressing music but also uber inappropriate rap. Since I came only as a coach this year, I sat with several of the parents from my team. Several were disgusted by the lyrics of some of the songs, which included all kinds of things they had not discussed with their sixth graders. I'm not saying to play nursery rhymes, but next time there needs to be some consideration that there are still children under the age of 13 at nationals and any music played should respect that.

Also, I would like to comment on the fact that every competitor in B and C division got a medal. The competitors themselves probably will not say anything about it because it's a free medal, but I will be the one to speak up:

This is Science Olympiad nationals. In some states, the odds of ever going to the tournament are nearly 5 times less likely than the odds of becoming a division 1 NCAA athlete, which is roughly 6%. Students work like professionals to reach such an intense, high level of competition as do the coaches; each party expects the tournament to be conducted in a manner that reflects so. That being said, hardly any coaches I spoke to after the Parade of States expected every student to get a medal, a gesture which one would expect on a three year old soccer team rather than at a high caliber science competition with scholarships on the line. Additionally, earning a medal at nationals is considered to be a student's peak of his or her Science Olympiad career. By increasing the number of distributed medals, the tournament directors water down the effect of winning and make national medals appear less prestigious and uncommon than they actually are. I recommend that future directors should find alternatives to medals or any other type of participation award if they want to give students some mementos from the tournament, such as key chains or drawstring backpacks.

Like boomvroomshroom, this is intended to be constructive criticism and is based off of my observations only. Other students told me about the quality of certain tests they took today, but I will leave it up to them to offer advice.

[sciolyboy123]

At first I was crying after not getting called up, but then I saw the results and I got a bit better.

I got 10th in Disease, 14th in Bio-Process Lab, and 48th in Picture This

I guess you could say I went out with a boom (I'm Arab).

[John Richardsim]

So, if there was anyone else who competed in Anatomy and Physiology in division B, how impressed were you by the test? I personally loved how ironic it is that it was felt necessary to add another body system and physiology to division B after how clumped last year's spread of scores on the test was (and on a very hard test), and then this year the proctors decided to give us a recycled division C test with most (but not all) of the answers blanked out.

That being said, I am alright with having gotten 32nd in it, especially when 32nd was my team's lowest event placement this year (yes, I do see this as a good thing). Congratulations to my team for jumping to 12th this year! Lakeshore is back in the driver's seat!

[yterber]

WHos got the link to scoresheet for division C?

[InfiniCuber]

WHos got the link to scoresheet for division C?

tiny.cc/sont
Its a combined score sheet, scroll down for division C

[bernard]

WHos got the link to scoresheet for division C?

tiny.cc/sont
Its a combined score sheet, scroll down for division C

The scoresheets are also available on the 2015 National Tournament page at soinc.org.