Pennsylvania 2017

[what a beauty]

What is going on guys?

[what a beauty]

Good luck on the 2018 season.

[Atomicbob11]

Word has it (I'm definitely not a proper source) that Conestoga was scored a NS b/c the proctors of Ecology said they didn't have a test from them. However, Conestoga claims they were at the event, therefore, putting a difficult decision on the event proctor and the state organizer.

I believe if they placed top 8 in Ecology they would have secured 2nd place, but the NS pushed them down - though I could be wrong as I did that analysis quickly.

If this drama settles out like most drama does in the PA region, as there is always drama or something that goes wrong for a top 10 school allegedly at the PA state competition, nothing will change and the scores released will stay the same.

It's always a shame that even scioly, a competition that is meant to instill and nourish the curiosity and learning abilities of many ends up becoming filled with so much drama and so politicized at the top of the PA ranks, whether it's on purpose or completely accidental. It's an adult run organization where the adults sadly have primary jobs as teachers and can't be expected to be 100% perfect on everything.

Congratulations nonetheless to all the teams that competed. Definitely an interesting dynamic with Harriton way out in front (further than normal) and all of the other schools playing the race for 2nd place. High hopes to Harriton to go for top 3 at nationals!

[EastStroudsburg13]

Question for anyone who did Electric Vehicle: was there actually a fourteen-way tie? Is that why the scoresheet has so many teams at 27th?

[Avogadro]

I have to say that I, too, am a bit disappointed that the scoring problems that from what I've heard are likely not going to be addressed at all. For a team that made a huge climb this year it would be nice to see how well we actually did without any sort of scoring malfunction (ED in particular is disappointing, since we did exactly the same experiment as the top teams...). Sadly, there's not much that can be done past what our team has already tried, so I suppose I'll just have to live with it.

@East: Though I wasn't at EV, from what I've heard from the people who competed at it we got 19th when we were 70 cm away from the goal (thanks, slight randomness of Arduino!), so unless they all got tiered (which still wouldn't have put them at 27th?...) it seems unlikely as anything past 70 cm seems likely to have significant variance.

[EastStroudsburg13]

I have to say that I, too, am a bit disappointed that the scoring problems that from what I've heard are likely not going to be addressed at all. For a team that made a huge climb this year it would be nice to see how well we actually did without any sort of scoring malfunction (ED in particular is disappointing, since we did exactly the same experiment as the top teams...). Sadly, there's not much that can be done past what our team has already tried, so I suppose I'll just have to live with it.

Were there any scoring problems other than Ecology? ED, while it had some odd ranks, didn't seem to me to be on the level of "scoring malfunction". There are lots of review processes in place for states, so while the scoring might be odd, it can likely just be chalked up to a sub-optimal running of an event (which happens at almost every single state tournament in the country), as opposed to a legitimate malfunction. Aside from Ecology and EV (perhaps we just shouldn't have events that start with E anymore), I'm not sure anything is a "scoring problem" as much as just a typical variance in the quality of the events themselves.

[StogaJdan]

Hey y'all, I'm on Conestoga's SciOly team. What happened at States this year was that we received a NS in ecology, and later found out that the ES didn't have our test. However, to test our pair's claim that they had competed, PASO (PA SciOly) asked for multiple witnesses to confirm. Upon providing those witnesses, they further claimed that one of our students had taken a test home, which wasn't something we could disprove...

We needed about 8th place in Eco or better to reach Nationals for the first time in our 13 year history, and I'm reasonably confident that that would've happened. The pair that competed at States also placed 2nd at MIT, and was confident that they had done well at states as well.

At the end, after two days of appealing and discussion, the state board decided that they would "take no action", and keep our score as a NS (+37). Personally, I don't see this as a "neutral" position, since giving +37 as a NS seems more like arbitrary punishment, but ultimately that's not what the board decided.

Not much we can do at this point, but 'Stoga's coming back next year with a vengeance.

[EastStroudsburg13]

At the end, after two days of appealing and discussion, the state board decided that they would "take no action", and keep our score as a NS (+37). Personally, I don't see this as a "neutral" position, since giving +37 as a NS seems more like arbitrary punishment, but ultimately that's not what the board decided.

The problem is that due to the fact that they could not prove any wrongdoing by either the participants or the supervisor, there is no punishment or plan of action that is not arbitrary. In fact, the least arbitrary position probably is giving a P (+36), as they obviously did not have a test to grade, so they could not rank the team. In the end, this does not really solve the problem all that much.

The only other plan of action I could reasonably see one taking is providing the team with an "average score", in this case 18. This would have moved Conestoga up to 3rd overall, but not enough to move them up to 2nd. Again, it's unfortunate that the test was lost somewhere, and I do think the supervisor likely could have done a better job keeping track of the tests, but in the end, there's not a lot they can do; it is also partially the participants' responsibility to ensure that their test makes its way, in full, to the supervisor, or to a grader under the supervisor's discretion.

I am not trying to make light of the situation or to say that all events were run well. However, I don't really feel good about implications that PASO isn't "neutral" or that they don't really care. Having been involved with the state tournament closer this year, I can assure you that the board does deeply care about maintaining the integrity of the system, and that they don't take these sorts of decisions lightly. In the end, there's really not a ton they can do with the cards they're given, unfortunate as they may be.

[maxxxxx]

I have to say that I, too, am a bit disappointed that the scoring problems that from what I've heard are likely not going to be addressed at all. For a team that made a huge climb this year it would be nice to see how well we actually did without any sort of scoring malfunction (ED in particular is disappointing, since we did exactly the same experiment as the top teams...). Sadly, there's not much that can be done past what our team has already tried, so I suppose I'll just have to live with it.

Were there any scoring problems other than Ecology? ED, while it had some odd ranks, didn't seem to me to be on the level of "scoring malfunction". There are lots of review processes in place for states, so while the scoring might be odd, it can likely just be chalked up to a sub-optimal running of an event (which happens at almost every single state tournament in the country), as opposed to a legitimate malfunction. Aside from Ecology and EV (perhaps we just shouldn't have events that start with E anymore), I'm not sure anything is a "scoring problem" as much as just a typical variance in the quality of the events themselves.

Since there seems to be some miscommunications(some of my own fault included), I will clear up the sentiments about Experimental Design.

First, you are correct in saying that the event was poorly run. Each team was given 4 pieces of lined paper and one sheet of graph paper to use for the writeup. This alone is not a problem, but the supervisor made each competitor write in pen, and the team running the event was very reluctant to give out extra paper. Science is not about perfection on the first try, it is about failing and trying again, and by removing our ability to erase mistakes and withholding an opportunity to start anew, they limited our ability to truly act as scientists, and I might go so far as to say they undermined the very principles and the mission of Science Olympiad. They expected us to follow the rubric from soinc.org, but did not provide an outline as mandated under rule 3.c., which is absolutely unfair to the teams that had not memorized the rubric before entering the competition. If I had realized this then, I absolutely would have appealed the event then and there. About 15 minutes into the event, the ES vaguely implied that he would take off points if some sections were out of order, but by then it was too late to change anything because of the reasons outlined above. Because of this, our variables section was on a separate piece of paper than the two sections surrounding it on either side, but I do not see how that could or should warrant such a low place, with all things considered.

Secondly, I exaggerated by telling my teammates that we had the exact same experiment as the top teams, but ours was indeed very similar(and I might say more scientific and closer to the given topic) to the high placing teams with whom I have spoken. The proctors provided 5 rubberbands, a 1-kilogram hanging mass, and a spring scale, with the topic of Materials Science. Many other teams were very thrown off by this, as it is indeed a very odd topic with which many people will not have experience. The interesting thing, however, is that we happened to practice a very similar experiment the night before, and had discussed how we would improve it with better materials, which just happened to be some of the ones provided at the competition. Our experiment was composed of attaching 3 rubberbands in parallel to the end of the spring scale, attaching the hanging mass to the other end of the rubber bands, and measuring the strain of the rubberbands as a proportion of the increase of their initial length, or (final length - initial length)/initial length. We then measured again with 4 rubberbands and then 5 rubberbands used in parallel, as our levels of the independent variable. If this is not on topic, then I, among with every other member of my team including the person we had discussed this topic with the night before who did a materials science summer program at a local university, must be seriously misunderstanding what materials science entails.

I have competed in Experimental Design several times at the Invitational, Regional, and State levels, and the worst place I have ever received is 8th. That is not to say that a worse score must be out of the picture, but I truly believe this was the best lab report I have ever written, and I think my partners would agree. It just doesn't make sense to me that our experiment would produce the worst place our school has received in this event as far back as the results on the wiki go(bar 2014, when some weird stuff was going on with Experimental), including last year, when the trio doing this event wrote an off-topic experiment.

While it would take a top 3 placing in this event for my team to make it to Nationals, I do not think this is out of the picture given the circumstances surrounding our lab report and our performance, but I accept that scores are more are less final and this would still be very unlikely(you can never guarantee a medal in anything), but this is not why I am angry about this event.

Let me say it one more time: I do not blame this event for holding us back from Nationals, but I also do not find it plausible that we could have actually deserved a 19th place in this event. Our coach has emailed the ES asking for feedback and maybe an explanation of our placing, but until he responds, I refuse to accept that we deserved 19th place. I know you cannot appeal an event or ask for the scores to be checked again off of "I thought I did better", and I honestly don't believe this will change at all in the scores, but that will not prevent me from voicing my concerns with this event.

In all honesty, I have completely lost faith in PA to ever run Experimental Design well. Out of 6 times competing in ED at an official(non-invitational) PA tournament, only two of them have been run well, the most recent being 2015 Regionals. On the contrary, all alumni-run invitationals that I've competed at have been run very well. If States were not in the middle of my college's spring quarter, I would already be in contact with PASO about running this event next year. And even if the board took another look and decided there was a problem, and removed this event from the final scores, we would still be 3 points away from Nationals, so please do not think that is why I am expressing my displeasure with this event.

My concerns with this event do not imply that any high placing team does not deserve their place, but that our placing is not accurate.

On a somewhat unrelated note: I talked to a friend whose mother is on the board, and he doesn't know when an updated scoresheet will be uploaded, so it could be a while before we get closure on EV.

[EastStroudsburg13]

I do appreciate everything you've mentioned. I definitely wanted to make sure that I know everyone competing is coming from a good place. It does seem as though the proliferation of high quality invitationals has raised the bar somewhat on expected quality of events, since while events were always expected to be run well, more teams are being shown how an exemplary event is run. This is not a bad thing; I think we all should be demanding excellence. However, sometimes certain events do get left behind, and now they stick out like even more of a sore thumb, because teams can identify it from a mile away just because they have so much data in their arsenal.

In all honesty, I have completely lost faith in PA to ever run Experimental Design well. Out of 6 times competing in ED at an official(non-invitational) PA tournament, only two of them have been run well, the most recent being 2015 Regionals. On the contrary, all alumni-run invitationals that I've competed at have been run very well. If States were not in the middle of my college's spring quarter, I would already be in contact with PASO about running this event next year. And even if the board took another look and decided there was a problem, and removed this event from the final scores, we would still be 3 points away from Nationals, so please do not think that is why I am expressing my displeasure with this event.

So that brings me to ED. In all honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this was an event that PA struggles with simply because there isn't an ED expert in the state. It was the last event to get a state supervisor, at least judging by the spreadsheet online, and at a point you just have to get someone willing to run the event, or drop the event entirely. Dropping an event is never ideal, but sometimes it results in cases like what we're discussing.

Now, as for the alumni-run invitationals, I expect PASO is very acutely aware of the success of these events. However, it's sometimes difficult to keep track of all the alumni and figure out ways to get people from lots of different places to come back for a specific weekend in spring that, as you said, may be in the middle of a class period for those in school. I wouldn't be surprised if they'll brainstorm ways to keep alumni in the loop a little bit better over the summer, when planning for tournaments is less immediately urgent.