2010 National Tournament: University of Illinois

[srsvball95]

That would be good to divide up by time zones- but there's a lot of people in the central time zone...

[starpug]

That would be good to divide up by time zones- but there's a lot of people in the central time zone...

Little lopsided, lots of people in Central and Eastern but few in the other 4. Maybe Coasts vs. Mountain and Central or West+Central Vs East+Mountain

[chia]

Champaign is...2.5 hours from Chicago, IL

actually, it took me about three hours (on low traffic and no stops) and where i live is closer than chicago is, so from chicago i'd say around 3.5 hours, varying with traffic.

[croman74]

Champaign is...2.5 hours from Chicago, IL

actually, it took me about three hours (on low traffic and no stops) and where i live is closer than chicago is, so from chicago i'd say around 3.5 hours, varying with traffic.

No, I don't think it would take 3.5 hours. I've been down there quite a few times as we have family friends, and from Grand Rapids it takes like 3 hours. I think 2.5, maybe 2.75 hours is what it'll take.

[jazzy009]

Ya know, we could have a Student Forum Ultimate Open. Just pick like 8 captains who are going to nats and then have them choose their teams in Illinois. Then we could call people by their usernames instead of real names...haha I'm awful at real names.

[kjhsscioly]

Champaign is...2.5 hours from Chicago, IL

actually, it took me about three hours (on low traffic and no stops) and where i live is closer than chicago is, so from chicago i'd say around 3.5 hours, varying with traffic.

No, I don't think it would take 3.5 hours. I've been down there quite a few times as we have family friends, and from Grand Rapids it takes like 3 hours. I think 2.5, maybe 2.75 hours is what it'll take.

i live close to chia, and it took me 30 minutes less than her... but with some traffic.. so 2.75 hours would be close under optimal situations

[srsvball95]

Ya know, we could have a Student Forum Ultimate Open. Just pick like 8 captains who are going to nats and then have them choose their teams in Illinois. Then we could call people by their usernames instead of real names...haha I'm awful at real names.

thats a good idea we should do that rather than by science olympiad teams because then it would be a bunch of teams and we wouldn't really combine teams...

it could be like a tournament where each team plays the other teams in the pool and then next first plays first, second plays second, third plays third and so on (If we only had 8 teams)

[fullofit]

Of all the SO Nationals that I have been to, Urbana and Bloomington have been the best run, best venues, nicest campuses. They really put on a great welcome at both places, and I think that last ime Nationals was at Illinois that offered a full scholarship to every C division gold medal winner (I believe B division got a $5,000 scholarship to Urbana). I don't know if they will do that again, and I don't know how many winners actually take the scholarship (many of our team members end up at MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc.), but with the economy going like it is, they may get a lot more takers next year.

I would like to see a West Coast SO some time. I have been doing this for 5 years and the travel time and jet lag (time difference) for the West Coast teams is sometimes brutal. We have some team members who can't come until Friday (due to testing) and they are like zombies during competition. WHen we went to DC last year our connecting flight got delayed by 6 hours so our travel time was like 12 hours total, and we were fried when we got there. In addition the shipping of the building event supplies is expensive and requires us to complete everything more than a week before competition. It must be great to just hop into a car or bus and be at the University in a few hours, in the same time zone, and with all your devices intact (without haveing to spend many hours packing everything in crates). If we are going to have to travel for 5 hours by plane then lets do this in Hawaii, or Miami, or Guam, or American Samoa, Puerto Rico, or someplace where we can do some diving and surfing. Just kidding, I really like Urbana, but a full scholarship to Stanford, Berkley or UCLA would be great as well.

[beaverkid]

Since when did NY become a west coast state?

[EastStroudsburg13]

Could be that his state is wrong. Or that he was born in NY. Either way I'm pretty sure he's on the West Coast now, his entire post suggests that.