laneyoung wrote:dholdgreve wrote:
* Handle the crowd... I personally do not allow others to take pictures of bridges that do not belong to their team... I print up posters and place in conspicuous areas... Still, there are those that try, and occasionally it may even become confrontational, but stand your ground.
I agree with handling the crowd as an important ES duty. However, different states have different cultures around picture taking. In IL, for instance, all of the competitions (regionals, invites and states) I've been to allow general picture taking (argument being that learning from and building off of others is part of the scientific process) and so the confrontations come from those who don't want pictures taken of their teams.
Just wanted to chime in on my personal opinion (as well as how I've seen this handled at Nationals many times). Keep in mind that tournament directors classify events into 2 possible categories: open to the public and closed to the public. There is usually a lot of consistency from tournament to tournament as to which are open to the public, but no specific requirement / mandate in the rules. By making an event open to the public, it's an opportunity to engage parents, siblings, and other team members in this wonderful thing we call Science Olympiad. And as such, in today's modern social media crazed society, we should ENCOURAGE publicity, since anyone can be an author / journalist Which means we should be supportive of picture and video taking.
The visible, physical appearance of a device (be it a bridge, electric vehicle, or air trajectory device), is usually only a minor contributor to the success of that device. There are so many other factors that weigh far more heavily into the capability (such as glue type, wood density, grain orientation, water content, etc. etc.). There is always room for improvement in any device, and for all those teams thinking they have the ultimate, perfect device they don't want anyone else to 'copy', they might pick up a few tips by observing some of their competitors devices.
Preventing pictures isn't going to stop people from copying devices. Many people have excellent visual memories and can use pencil and paper to draw very accurate sketches of things they've seen. Cameras are becoming smaller and more inconspicuous, allowing photos to be taken very discretely. Broken bridges can be recovered from trash cans after an event and pieced back together. Hence, why start an arms race between the spectators and event supervisors?
The bottom line is something I regular mention at coaches clinics - please keep the SO mission in mind, which consists of 3 components: Create an interest and passion for science; Improve STEM education and workforce skills; Recognize and celebrate achievements by students and teachers. The medals and trophies are the last, third part of the mission, and the part that has the least long-term impact. The first 2 parts are the really important ones, and by trying to be all secretive about device designs at events that are open to the public, a disservice is being done to the mission.
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