Massachusetts 2017

User avatar
Unome
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 4336
Joined: January 26th, 2014, 12:48 pm
Division: Grad
State: GA
Has thanked: 235 times
Been thanked: 85 times

Re: Massachusetts 2017

Post by Unome »

Magikarpmaster629 wrote:So does anyone think there would be interest in a B Division, university-run invitational in New England? I'm going to uni there and while there have been many high-end div C tournaments popping up, there aren't many div B tournaments besides Cornell. If it would be at my uni, UMass-Amherst, it's an hour away from Boston and New York, which isn't too far for many teams. There would also be the problem of actually running the tournament, and since that area (western Mass) is pretty unfamiliar with Scioly I would probably do most of the work, which is probably really difficult for a college student like I will be.
It'll probably be rather difficult the first year (there's not many teams besides NY in the area), but if you can build up a reputation you should be in good shape, since there are so many potential event supervisors within a few hours of the area.
Userpage

Opinions expressed on this site are not official; the only place for official rules changes and FAQs is soinc.org.
User avatar
EastStroudsburg13
Admin Emeritus
Admin Emeritus
Posts: 3202
Joined: January 17th, 2009, 7:32 am
Division: Grad
State: PA
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Has thanked: 48 times
Been thanked: 204 times
Contact:

Re: Massachusetts 2017

Post by EastStroudsburg13 »

One thing to keep in mind is that while the current number of B teams in New England is low, the presence of an invitational could help develop more teams and strengthen the area overall, which could give you a wider base in future years.
East Stroudsburg South Class of 2012, Alumnus of JT Lambert, Drexel University Class of 2017

Helpful Links
Wiki
Wiki Pages that Need Work
FAQ and SciOly FAQ Wiki
Chat (See IRC Wiki for more info)
BBCode Wiki


So long, and thanks for all the Future Dictator titles!
User avatar
antoine_ego
Exalted Member
Exalted Member
Posts: 387
Joined: May 24th, 2016, 5:37 pm
Division: Grad
State: MA
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Massachusetts 2017

Post by antoine_ego »

Magikarpmaster629 wrote:So does anyone think there would be interest in a B Division, university-run invitational in New England? I'm going to uni there and while there have been many high-end div C tournaments popping up, there aren't many div B tournaments besides Cornell. If it would be at my uni, UMass-Amherst, it's an hour away from Boston and New York, which isn't too far for many teams. There would also be the problem of actually running the tournament, and since that area (western Mass) is pretty unfamiliar with Scioly I would probably do most of the work, which is probably really difficult for a college student like I will be.
It would most certainly be very difficult to start one up due to the lack of teams in NE in general for Division B. The distance between the top Div B teams (Coolidge and Diamond) is about 100 miles. While Division C teams would be most certainly up to the task of driving that far, for Division B things might be different. Added to the fact that there are only a handful of teams (both divisions) in Western Mass, it might be a bit tricky to pull off. However, despite the difficulties, the idea itself sounds quite awesome.
Rest in Peace Len Joeris
[b]2016 Air Trajectory Nationals - 3rd
2018 Hovercraft Nationals - 6th
2018 Mousetrap Nationals - 6th
2018 Nationals - Team 9th Place!
2019 Astronomy Nationals - 3rd!
2019 Nationals - Team 9th Place!
[/b]
Acton-Boxborough Regional High School Captain 17-19
haveagneissday
Member
Member
Posts: 1
Joined: May 15th, 2017, 1:58 pm
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Massachusetts 2017

Post by haveagneissday »

Hi, MA Science Olympians. I realize this thread hasn't been active for a month, but I just happened upon it and was so excited I had to register so I could respond! (I've been reading this forum off and on for years but never registered.)

I am the Coolidge Middle School coach. We would LOVE to see a bigger, more competitive invitational for Division B. I was even contemplating trying to get contact information for the folks at MIT to see if I could persuade them to expand to Division B. But I had a baby two weeks before States this year and... have been busy with other things.

Right now Division B has two events (one in December and one in late January / early February) that we call "invitationals" but they're non-competitive. We don't score the tests or award ribbons, we don't charge registration fees, and we try to keep things very informal and low-key to encourage new teams who are just getting started. While I think there's a place for events like that, we would also love to see something bigger and more challenging to bring our state closer to the level of competition we're going to see this week at Nationals.

My team will gladly travel just about anywhere in New England if there's an invitational. We would absolutely be willing to come to Amherst. I would be willing to submit a test or two. Feel free to send me a message if you want to discuss it more!
kenniky
Member
Member
Posts: 283
Joined: January 21st, 2016, 6:16 pm
Division: Grad
State: MA
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Massachusetts 2017

Post by kenniky »

Hi there.

This is kenniky; and I am (was?) a senior at Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in Massachusetts. I, along with antoine_ego and another member of our team (referred to as A), were prohibited from going to nationals this year despite our team's qualification and our performances throughout the year. I'd like to explain the circumstances that led to this decision in the hopes that you all can learn from our mistakes.

At the Massachusetts Science Olympiad, certain dual events, such as Wind Power, have their build and written test portions split throughout the day; builds are self-scheduled early in the day, while written tests are taken near the end of the competition. Because A was also doing Electric Vehicle and Robot Arm at the competition, we decided beforehand that antoine_ego and A would test the Hovercraft build, while I would take the written test with antoine_ego so that A would have time at the end of the day to test his other builds.

At the competition, we proceeded as planned. antoine_ego and A tested the Hovercraft build first thing in the morning, while I was in Optics; however, a slight misjudgment in regards to the mass of our vehicle left it unable to run, so we got a 0 for the build portion. A couple of other questionable events throughout the day, such as a questionable Materials Science test and an almost-DQ in Helicopters, left us pretty anxious about our chances for the National Tournament.

Come the Hovercraft test. As planned, antoine_ego and I proceeded to the Hovercraft room. Once we arrived, however, we were met with a surprise - the event supervisor stated that those who had tested the build earlier in the day should be the ones taking he written test. We kind of panicked and eventually decided to just write A's name down and hope they wouldn't try to compare handwriting. We informed A afterwards but told no one else, and summarily got 4th in Hovercraft on our test alone, destroying the competition and earning our eighth consecutive nationals qualification.

This, in hindsight, ended up being the worst decision I've ever made in my scioly career.

About a month later - so about two weeks before nationals - A came up to me. His conscience had been nagging him about the trick we had pulled off at states, and even though he hadn't been a part of the decision at the time, he thought we should tell someone about it, on the basis of morality. Although I had my apprehensions about the plan and its potential consequences, I knew that it was ultimately the right thing to do, so I agreed. antoine_ego took a little more convincing, but eventually he also decided that we should tell someone about it. So, A wrote a lengthy email to our coach explaining the situation and the circumstances surrounding it.

The rest of it spiraled out of control extremely quickly. School administration got involved, which we hadn't expected at all; and our disqualification from Hovercraft actually ended up putting us in second by 1 point, meaning that Newton South was offered the chance to compete; they unhappily declined as the notice was way too sudden. To make a long story short, the three of us were ultimately banned from the 2017 National Tournament - which is why Acton-Boxborough may not have done as well as you expected. Sorry to any of you who put us high in the prediction contest.

Was I sad? That's an understatement; I was absolutely devastated at losing the one thing I had consistently worked towards for the better part of a year. Could we have gotten away with it? Almost certainly; the fact that we survived until May without anyone noticing meant that they had probably passed our tests over and thought nothing of them. But I think it can serve as a lesson to all of you, that the rules just really aren't worth breaking for that extra leg up on the competition.

Mistakes were made, and no matter how much I angst about it (and I'm still angsting a lot about it), there's really no reversing them. I just hope that something good can come out of this, and that's why I'm posting this here.

Thanks for reading. I'll see you at Midwest competitions, or the next National Tournament, where maybe I'll finally replace Jon Aros and give you all a decent Chem Lab test.

I'm still actually so tilted though we definitely would have made top 10 angeryyyyy
Automated Event Assigner!
UMich 2018: Chem Lab, Fermi

[url=http://tinyurl.com/kenniky-so-test]Rate my tests![/url]
[url]https://scioly.org/wiki/index.php/User:Kenniky[/url]

[url=https://scioly.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10008&start=34]2017 Nats = rip[/url]
[url=https://youtu.be/MCo8IAovjfw]ABRHS 2016[/url]
Raleway
Exalted Member
Exalted Member
Posts: 228
Joined: March 12th, 2017, 7:19 pm
Division: C
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Massachusetts 2017

Post by Raleway »

kenniky wrote:Hi there.

This is kenniky; and I am (was?) a senior at Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in Massachusetts. I, along with antoine_ego and another member of our team (referred to as A), were prohibited from going to nationals this year despite our team's qualification and our performances throughout the year. I'd like to explain the circumstances that led to this decision in the hopes that you all can learn from our mistakes.

At the Massachusetts Science Olympiad, certain dual events, such as Wind Power, have their build and written test portions split throughout the day; builds are self-scheduled early in the day, while written tests are taken near the end of the competition. Because A was also doing Electric Vehicle and Robot Arm at the competition, we decided beforehand that antoine_ego and A would test the Hovercraft build, while I would take the written test with antoine_ego so that A would have time at the end of the day to test his other builds.

At the competition, we proceeded as planned. antoine_ego and A tested the Hovercraft build first thing in the morning, while I was in Optics; however, a slight misjudgment in regards to the mass of our vehicle left it unable to run, so we got a 0 for the build portion. A couple of other questionable events throughout the day, such as a questionable Materials Science test and an almost-DQ in Helicopters, left us pretty anxious about our chances for the National Tournament.

Come the Hovercraft test. As planned, antoine_ego and I proceeded to the Hovercraft room. Once we arrived, however, we were met with a surprise - the event supervisor stated that those who had tested the build earlier in the day should be the ones taking he written test. We kind of panicked and eventually decided to just write A's name down and hope they wouldn't try to compare handwriting. We informed A afterwards but told no one else, and summarily got 4th in Hovercraft on our test alone, destroying the competition and earning our eighth consecutive nationals qualification.

This, in hindsight, ended up being the worst decision I've ever made in my scioly career.

About a month later - so about two weeks before nationals - A came up to me. His conscience had been nagging him about the trick we had pulled off at states, and even though he hadn't been a part of the decision at the time, he thought we should tell someone about it, on the basis of morality. Although I had my apprehensions about the plan and its potential consequences, I knew that it was ultimately the right thing to do, so I agreed. antoine_ego took a little more convincing, but eventually he also decided that we should tell someone about it. So, A wrote a lengthy email to our coach explaining the situation and the circumstances surrounding it.

The rest of it spiraled out of control extremely quickly. School administration got involved, which we hadn't expected at all; and our disqualification from Hovercraft actually ended up putting us in second by 1 point, meaning that Newton South was offered the chance to compete; they unhappily declined as the notice was way too sudden. To make a long story short, the three of us were ultimately banned from the 2017 National Tournament - which is why Acton-Boxborough may not have done as well as you expected. Sorry to any of you who put us high in the prediction contest.

Was I sad? That's an understatement; I was absolutely devastated at losing the one thing I had consistently worked towards for the better part of a year. Could we have gotten away with it? Almost certainly; the fact that we survived until May without anyone noticing meant that they had probably passed our tests over and thought nothing of them. But I think it can serve as a lesson to all of you, that the rules just really aren't worth breaking for that extra leg up on the competition.

Mistakes were made, and no matter how much I angst about it (and I'm still angsting a lot about it), there's really no reversing them. I just hope that something good can come out of this, and that's why I'm posting this here.

Thanks for reading. I'll see you at Midwest competitions, or the next National Tournament, where maybe I'll finally replace Jon Aros and give you all a decent Chem Lab test.

I'm still actually so tilted though we definitely would have made top 10 angeryyyyy
God bless. Though I'm sure many a team does this... then again, bless your morals and ethics- need a lot more of those in this world.

Best of luck to you on your university and future after.
Sleep is for the week; one only needs it once a week :!: :geek: :roll: :?: :idea:

God bless Len Joeris | Balsaman
fizzle
Member
Member
Posts: 13
Joined: March 12th, 2017, 4:50 pm
Division: C
State: MA
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Massachusetts 2017

Post by fizzle »

kenniky wrote:Hi there.

This is kenniky; and I am (was?) a senior at Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in Massachusetts. I, along with antoine_ego and another member of our team (referred to as A), were prohibited from going to nationals this year despite our team's qualification and our performances throughout the year. I'd like to explain the circumstances that led to this decision in the hopes that you all can learn from our mistakes.
kenniky wrote: At the competition, we proceeded as planned. antoine_ego and A tested the Hovercraft build first thing in the morning, while I was in Optics; however, a slight misjudgment in regards to the mass of our vehicle left it unable to run, so we got a 0 for the build portion. A couple of other questionable events throughout the day, such as a questionable Materials Science test and an almost-DQ in Helicopters, left us pretty anxious about our chances for the National Tournament.
I can confirm, being at the state competition - I heard that only two teams had legal and/or working builds for Hovercraft, so it was essentially a test event, except for those two teams.
Also, my team was left somewhat puzzled with our 1st in Materials Science - if it deviated from the ruleset, that would make sense.
kenniky wrote: About a month later - so about two weeks before nationals - A came up to me. His conscience had been nagging him about the trick we had pulled off at states, and even though he hadn't been a part of the decision at the time, he thought we should tell someone about it, on the basis of morality. Although I had my apprehensions about the plan and its potential consequences, I knew that it was ultimately the right thing to do, so I agreed. antoine_ego took a little more convincing, but eventually he also decided that we should tell someone about it. So, A wrote a lengthy email to our coach explaining the situation and the circumstances surrounding it.

The rest of it spiraled out of control extremely quickly. School administration got involved, which we hadn't expected at all; and our disqualification from Hovercraft actually ended up putting us in second by 1 point, meaning that Newton South was offered the chance to compete; they unhappily declined as the notice was way too sudden. To make a long story short, the three of us were ultimately banned from the 2017 National Tournament - which is why Acton-Boxborough may not have done as well as you expected. Sorry to any of you who put us high in the prediction contest.

Was I sad? That's an understatement; I was absolutely devastated at losing the one thing I had consistently worked towards for the better part of a year. Could we have gotten away with it? Almost certainly; the fact that we survived until May without anyone noticing meant that they had probably passed our tests over and thought nothing of them. But I think it can serve as a lesson to all of you, that the rules just really aren't worth breaking for that extra leg up on the competition.

Mistakes were made, and no matter how much I angst about it (and I'm still angsting a lot about it), there's really no reversing them. I just hope that something good can come out of this, and that's why I'm posting this here.
That's really unfortunate to hear... :? I was hopeful for our state's chances this year, but some things are more important. Ultimately your team's morals held through, and that's really impressive. I can't say that my team would have definitely made the same decision in your position.

I'll send this story to them. Hopefully we all learn from this situation :)
VP Winchester HS 2018-19
Perpetually 6th in MA

Going to Harvard and Brown this year! :)

Events:

Thermo
Circuit Lab
Codebusters
Geologic Mapping
MIScioly1
Member
Member
Posts: 128
Joined: April 30th, 2017, 12:27 pm
Division: Grad
State: MI
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Massachusetts 2017

Post by MIScioly1 »

A very unfortunate situation. I can guarantee that plenty of teams do similar things in Science Olympiad and never get caught. I am someone who believes that honesty should be rewarded, so I think that it's a shame that, in exchange for being honest, you were prohibited from going to nationals. You should take pride in the fact that you made the right choice, even if it was the hard one and the one with consequences.
University of Michigan Science Olympiad Executive Board
nejanimb
Exalted Member
Exalted Member
Posts: 343
Joined: November 14th, 2008, 5:17 am
Division: Grad
State: PA
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Massachusetts 2017

Post by nejanimb »

To clarify – the 2017 MA state champion is now Newton High School South.

I’m one of the folks that handles scoring the MA Science Olympiad State Tournament, but my thoughts here are my own and are not official statements from MA SciOly. I’ll avoid saying too much about the actual cheating involved here since it’s been acknowledged and is so clear cut in its wrongness. I will say that I think it’s good of you to post on this topic here @Kenniky, and personally I thought the punishments levied thus far have been very mild if anything. In particular, I know everyone is sorry for the miserable and difficult situation this put the Newton South team in.

One thing I find challenging about MA SciOly relative to other state organizations I’m familiar with (PA, VA, CA) is that MA does even more to distinguish their local tournaments vs. nationals and really strongly emphasizes giving Event Supervisors power to make their own decisions in how they run their events. There are benefits to both of those approaches, but I’m of the opinion that we are probably too quick to break with what the national organization has set out, because we expose ourselves to unforeseen consequences. Splitting the test and build portions of these events is one example, but this year’s tournament had other issues too (helicopters, experimental design, etc.) that were driven by challenging decisions made by event supervisors.

All that is to say – there are some ways things could be better for teams (and we’re working on it), but running a tournament is hard, and willful cheating from participants makes it even harder.
Harriton '10, UVA '14
Event Supervisor in MA (prev. VA and NorCal)
kenniky
Member
Member
Posts: 283
Joined: January 21st, 2016, 6:16 pm
Division: Grad
State: MA
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Massachusetts 2017

Post by kenniky »

nejanimb wrote:To clarify – the 2017 MA state champion is now Newton High School South.

I’m one of the folks that handles scoring the MA Science Olympiad State Tournament, but my thoughts here are my own and are not official statements from MA SciOly. I’ll avoid saying too much about the actual cheating involved here since it’s been acknowledged and is so clear cut in its wrongness. I will say that I think it’s good of you to post on this topic here @Kenniky, and personally I thought the punishments levied thus far have been very mild if anything. In particular, I know everyone is sorry for the miserable and difficult situation this put the Newton South team in.

One thing I find challenging about MA SciOly relative to other state organizations I’m familiar with (PA, VA, CA) is that MA does even more to distinguish their local tournaments vs. nationals and really strongly emphasizes giving Event Supervisors power to make their own decisions in how they run their events. There are benefits to both of those approaches, but I’m of the opinion that we are probably too quick to break with what the national organization has set out, because we expose ourselves to unforeseen consequences. Splitting the test and build portions of these events is one example, but this year’s tournament had other issues too (helicopters, experimental design, etc.) that were driven by challenging decisions made by event supervisors.

All that is to say – there are some ways things could be better for teams (and we’re working on it), but running a tournament is hard, and willful cheating from participants makes it even harder.
Hi there,

Nice of you to comment, and sorry for all the trouble we caused :b

Not sure if you can do this, but in the future, could the State Tournament be a little more proactive in releasing rules clarifications such as these earlier (I think the official website says a two week notice in advance is recommended)? I know that Helicopters also had a bit of a run-in with a rule vaguely banning kits that had been posted less than a week before the actual competition. I think this would be really helpful for ensuring that the state competition runs smoothly (or at least more smoothly)

Thanks! Hope to see AB do well again next year :)
Automated Event Assigner!
UMich 2018: Chem Lab, Fermi

[url=http://tinyurl.com/kenniky-so-test]Rate my tests![/url]
[url]https://scioly.org/wiki/index.php/User:Kenniky[/url]

[url=https://scioly.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10008&start=34]2017 Nats = rip[/url]
[url=https://youtu.be/MCo8IAovjfw]ABRHS 2016[/url]
Locked

Return to “2017 Invitationals, Regionals, and States”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests