Illinois 2018

[CMS AC]

No state would take an event that already exists and make it into a trial.

-_- NJ states every single year.

[Unome]

Ornithology - We're in new territory here, so I may get jinxed for this. Anyway, when there's a new animal science event, it has always been a trial event the previous season at state. For example: Invasive Species was a trial event in 2015, and then an actual event in 2016. Herpetology was a trial event in 2017, and then an actual event in 2018. Since Herpetology is entering it's second and final year, there's bound to be an animal science trial event. From what I know, Ornithology comes after Herpetology, so chances of this are pretty high.

So, I don't live in Ohio but I feel like I should make this correction: the rotation in 2015 was Entomology-Ornithology-Forestry. Then in 2016, Invasive Species was added after being a trial event, (it hadn't existed before) making the rotation Ento-Invasives-Ornithology-Forestry. In 2018, Herpetology was also added without having existed before, (not counting Amphibians and Reptiles) making the rotation Ento-Invasives-Herp-Ornithology-Forestry. No state would take an event that already exists and make it into a trial. If you think there'll be a trial bio ID event, it'll probably be Parasitology, which was a trial in NY this year.
EDIT: Oof. I meant Illinois.

It's more accurate to say that Invasives was added between Ento and Herps - the latter of which definitely existed and had been in the rotation for nearly 15 years at the time.

[Skink]

Re: trials, I was griping a few weeks back about Ornith not being one (according to recent trends). Did anybody pay attention to trial event participation this season? Like, did folks actually, seriously make electric airplanes and detectors? They seemed to have a high barrier to entry for being doable in only a few weeks' time.

[DarthBuilder]

Re: trials, I was griping a few weeks back about Ornith not being one (according to recent trends). Did anybody pay attention to trial event participation this season? Like, did folks actually, seriously make electric airplanes and detectors? They seemed to have a high barrier to entry for being doable in only a few weeks' time.

Yep!

For electric wright stuff 4th this year was 45 seconds and that would have been gold at nationals last year for that trial event.

Not sure about detectors though...

[19alekb]

Just on the topic of events guys, is Game On an easy or hard event(I'm in division B)? I used to do Scratch a lot, but always took my time making projects and I decided what I wanted to make. My team is going to pretty bad next year because it just leaves me and two other kids who were on varsity in 7th grade to carry the team when we're in 8th grade. I just want to know if I should do Game On or leave it to less experienced science olympiad members.

EDIT: I just want to add that I kind of want to do Game On because I think it would kind of be fun because I already know a lot of Scratch(it's pretty easy stuff)

[pb5754]

Ornithology - We're in new territory here, so I may get jinxed for this. Anyway, when there's a new animal science event, it has always been a trial event the previous season at state. For example: Invasive Species was a trial event in 2015, and then an actual event in 2016. Herpetology was a trial event in 2017, and then an actual event in 2018. Since Herpetology is entering it's second and final year, there's bound to be an animal science trial event. From what I know, Ornithology comes after Herpetology, so chances of this are pretty high.

So, I don't live in Ohio but I feel like I should make this correction: the rotation in 2015 was Entomology-Ornithology-Forestry. Then in 2016, Invasive Species was added after being a trial event, (it hadn't existed before) making the rotation Ento-Invasives-Ornithology-Forestry. In 2018, Herpetology was also added without having existed before, (not counting Amphibians and Reptiles) making the rotation Ento-Invasives-Herp-Ornithology-Forestry. No state would take an event that already exists and make it into a trial. If you think there'll be a trial bio ID event, it'll probably be Parasitology, which was a trial in NY this year.
EDIT: Oof. I meant Illinois.

Protein Modeling, a preexisting event, was a trial event at NJ states/regionals this year.

[chrroh]

Just on the topic of events guys, is Game On an easy or hard event(I'm in division B)? I used to do Scratch a lot, but always took my time making projects and I decided what I wanted to make. My team is going to pretty bad next year because it just leaves me and two other kids who were on varsity in 7th grade to carry the team when we're in 8th grade. I just want to know if I should do Game On or leave it to less experienced science olympiad members.

EDIT: I just want to add that I kind of want to do Game On because I think it would kind of be fun because I already know a lot of Scratch(it's pretty easy stuff)

If you already know a lot of scratch, I'd say do Game On, you're already ahead of a lot of teams actually. Any event is hard if you a) don't know how to do the event, b) don't practice, or c) if you don't have an understanding of what must be done to do well. If you have the inverse of those 3 traits to any event, including Game On, you should theoretically be fine.

For Game On specifically, the hardest part is getting everything done in 50 minutes, so I guess just learn how to program fast. Also, what my school's Game On team did was they learned how to create different types of games before hand. They also practiced a lot. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure for state this year for Game On, you had to know how to make 1 of these 3 games: racing, shooting, or building. So if you practice making the fundamentals for those types of games, you really should be fine. My school's team got 5th overall at state, so I guess that process officially works.

Also, the other difficult part that my two friends always struggled with in Game On was that it had to implement the scientific principles of the selected topic, and they never got those points. So For that, I would suggest maybe if there's a Game On forum for game topics or something like that, check that out. That way, you can get the hang of what the topics are and how strict the judges grade that section.

To do well, I recommend to just study the rubric. Game On is a lot like Experimental Design, where you have to create something on the spot, yet you already know what the standards are. So if you know what the components are and have a game plan with your partner, you should do well. You'd be surprised how ahead you'll be if you study the rubric simply because you'll know what to do.

On more thing, if you're a little concerned about next season in terms of how well the team will do overall, trust me I understand. I was kind of in the same position this year. It's better to have someone with experience in Scratch do this event, because then it has the potential to be a strong event overall. If it's given to a less experienced person, it probably has a low chance of being a strong event. So I'd say give it a shot, any event that's strong is helping your team out.

[chrroh]

Ornithology - We're in new territory here, so I may get jinxed for this. Anyway, when there's a new animal science event, it has always been a trial event the previous season at state. For example: Invasive Species was a trial event in 2015, and then an actual event in 2016. Herpetology was a trial event in 2017, and then an actual event in 2018. Since Herpetology is entering it's second and final year, there's bound to be an animal science trial event. From what I know, Ornithology comes after Herpetology, so chances of this are pretty high.

So, I don't live in Ohio but I feel like I should make this correction: the rotation in 2015 was Entomology-Ornithology-Forestry. Then in 2016, Invasive Species was added after being a trial event, (it hadn't existed before) making the rotation Ento-Invasives-Ornithology-Forestry. In 2018, Herpetology was also added without having existed before, (not counting Amphibians and Reptiles) making the rotation Ento-Invasives-Herp-Ornithology-Forestry. No state would take an event that already exists and make it into a trial. If you think there'll be a trial bio ID event, it'll probably be Parasitology, which was a trial in NY this year.
EDIT: Oof. I meant Illinois.

Protein Modeling, a preexisting event, was a trial event at NJ states/regionals this year.

Correct, Protein Modeling was a trial event in many states and will most likely replace Materials Science in the 2018-2019 season. I was surprised that that wasn't a trial event in Illinois bc a lot of states had it as one.

Also, the original rotation for the animal science events was Entomology-Herpetology-Ornithology-Forestry, I looked at the events for past years. Invasive Species was squeezed in front of Herpetology 2 years ago in 2016 for the first time ever (which sucked bc if it wasn't, Ornithology would've been an event in 2018, and I really wanted to do that). But anyway, it is possible that they can throw in a brand new animal science event (such as Parasitology, nice prediction) as a Trial for 2019 and actual event for 2020 (simply bc it's happened before). But overall, Trial Events in the end can go any way. My predictions this year were way off. Just know overall there's bound to be an Animal Science event as a Trial Event for IL in 2019 for whoever's interested.

[19alekb]

Just on the topic of events guys, is Game On an easy or hard event(I'm in division B)? I used to do Scratch a lot, but always took my time making projects and I decided what I wanted to make. My team is going to pretty bad next year because it just leaves me and two other kids who were on varsity in 7th grade to carry the team when we're in 8th grade. I just want to know if I should do Game On or leave it to less experienced science olympiad members.

EDIT: I just want to add that I kind of want to do Game On because I think it would kind of be fun because I already know a lot of Scratch(it's pretty easy stuff)

If you already know a lot of scratch, I'd say do Game On, you're already ahead of a lot of teams actually. Any event is hard if you a) don't know how to do the event, b) don't practice, or c) if you don't have an understanding of what must be done to do well. If you have the inverse of those 3 traits to any event, including Game On, you should theoretically be fine.

For Game On specifically, the hardest part is getting everything done in 50 minutes, so I guess just learn how to program fast. Also, what my school's Game On team did was they learned how to create different types of games before hand. They also practiced a lot. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure for state this year for Game On, you had to know how to make 1 of these 3 games: racing, shooting, or building. So if you practice making the fundamentals for those types of games, you really should be fine. My school's team got 5th overall at state, so I guess that process officially works.

Also, the other difficult part that my two friends always struggled with in Game On was that it had to implement the scientific principles of the selected topic, and they never got those points. So For that, I would suggest maybe if there's a Game On forum for game topics or something like that, check that out. That way, you can get the hang of what the topics are and how strict the judges grade that section.

To do well, I recommend to just study the rubric. Game On is a lot like Experimental Design, where you have to create something on the spot, yet you already know what the standards are. So if you know what the components are and have a game plan with your partner, you should do well. You'd be surprised how ahead you'll be if you study the rubric simply because you'll know what to do.

On more thing, if you're a little concerned about next season in terms of how well the team will do overall, trust me I understand. I was kind of in the same position this year. It's better to have someone with experience in Scratch do this event, because then it has the potential to be a strong event overall. If it's given to a less experienced person, it probably has a low chance of being a strong event. So I'd say give it a shot, any event that's strong is helping your team out.

Ok, thanks. I didn't really think some of the points over, so this helps a lot.

[TheChiScientist]

Lol. Side note: Geocaching was identical to the last year. Did anyone else notice that?