The University of Texas at Austin Invitational 2019

[Adi1008]

ATX Science Olympiad is excited to announce our fifth annual invitational tournament on Saturday, October 26, 2019! Registration will open later in the summer.

A few distinguishing features of our tournament we think you'll like:

Stress-free scheduling: Like our previous tournaments, this invitational will follow the 2018-2019 national schedule conflicts (released on the day after Labor day) in the interest of consistency and helping students plan their events in advance. Trial events will be run as sign-up events to allow for maximum flexibility.

Experienced Hosts: Since we ran our first regional in 2014, we’ve organized ten competitions that have served teams across the entire country. Through our experience and expertise, we’ve acquired a reputation for running the best tournament in Texas and strive to run this year’s invitational with impeccable quality and efficiency.

Less work for you: All events will be written, reviewed, and run by experienced Science Olympiad alumni from UT and other universities across the country. This means that coaches and parents will not be required to write tests or volunteer at the invitational, leaving them free to focus solely on coaching and supporting their own teams.

Quality Events: Our event supervisors are among the best in the country, with many having national medals and experience running events at MIT, Princeton, Golden Gate, and even Nationals! Every test will be reviewed by a member of our Exam Review Committee and will be written in a way that’s challenging and creative, yet accessible to even the newest teams. Engineering and lab events will be set up and run properly to ensure that every student can be rewarded for their hard work and preparation.

At ATX Science Olympiad, we believe that knowledge and a love for science should have no barriers, whether geographical or financial. We became the first university Science Olympiad organization ever to release all our exam materials immediately after our tournaments in 2014, allowing teams from across the country to learn from our event materials, and will do the same for this tournament. Furthermore, in the interest of removing financial hurdles in the way of teams competing, this tournament will be free for all attending teams. If transportation or lodging costs are prohibitive for your team, let us know - we might be able to help.

At the end of the day, we do this because we love Science Olympiad and want to help others experience the same joy we did as competitors. The goal of this invitational is to enrich the Science Olympiad experience of high school students across the state of Texas and the entire country, providing them with ample practice for future competitions, such as Regionals or State. Furthermore, we aim to foster growth in TSO by encouraging new teams and giving them an accessible tournament. To that end, we hope to see you all at the tournament in October!

If you are interested in joining our Exam Review Committee or being an event supervisor, please fill out this form or private message me - we'd love to have you!

[cytochalasin22]

Saturday, October 26, 2019!

Hey, that's my birthday

[cool hand luke]

My team will be there. Excited to get an early jump on things.

[frostedflakes]

I'm a captain of a Division B team that placed in the top 10 at Nationals this year (want to remain anonymous since nothing is confirmed) and we are thinking about attending the UT invitational in the fall.

To anyone who has attended before (particularly Kraemer and Beckendorff): how well run is this tournament? A lot of the tournaments I've seen that run both Division B and C end up prioritizing Division C much more than B, so the Division B events end up being poorly run, too easy, written with the wrong rules, or worse (like Cornell Solar System).

Also, what is the competition like? How good are the teams besides Beckendorff and Kraemer? Our first priority is going to a competition that is the best run, but we also want it to be competitive too. Is there any possibility that the date for Division B changes? Right now it's early in the season.

Lastly, how easy is it to get to UT from the airport? Travelling to Cornell for Nationals was a pain and took hours and we'd prefer to attend a tournament that's more accessible.

Thanks,
frostedflakes

[Umaroth]

I'm a captain of a Division B team that placed in the top 10 at Nationals this year (want to remain anonymous since nothing is confirmed) and we are thinking about attending the UT invitational in the fall.

To anyone who has attended before (particularly Kraemer and Beckendorff): how well run is this tournament? A lot of the tournaments I've seen that run both Division B and C end up prioritizing Division C much more than B, so the Division B events end up being poorly run, too easy, written with the wrong rules, or worse (like Cornell Solar System).

Also, what is the competition like? How good are the teams besides Beckendorff and Kraemer? Our first priority is going to a competition that is the best run, but we also want it to be competitive too. Is there any possibility that the date for Division B changes? Right now it's early in the season.

Lastly, how easy is it to get to UT from the airport? Travelling to Cornell for Nationals was a pain and took hours and we'd prefer to attend a tournament that's more accessible.

Thanks,
frostedflakes

Hello, I was the captain of Kraemer this past year

UT was hands-down the best tournament we went to the past season. It was very well-run, and the tests are high-quality as expected from a tournament like UT (especially the Solar test written by Adi). The location is also accessible, about a 15-20 minute drive from the airport.

As for the competitiveness, the past year was mostly Kraemer, Beckendorff, and Kealing, with AAH taking a few medals. However, I have heard rumors of other high-profile teams whom I am not allowed to name yet that might attend. I think by the end of the month, there will be a few other top teams planning to sign up.

As a team, we definitely thought that this was our best choice for an out of state invitational. This past year, it served as a way to get our younger students some early-season experience since they allowed us to bring three teams, as well as a bit of a confidence booster before they got their souls crushed by the competition back in CA. I think the two main draws are how early in the season it is and the great test quality.

Hope this helps. We are definitely returning to the invitational this season, so hope to see some more high-ranking teams show up!

[JoeyC]

I'm a captain of a Division B team that placed in the top 10 at Nationals this year (want to remain anonymous since nothing is confirmed) and we are thinking about attending the UT invitational in the fall.

To anyone who has attended before (particularly Kraemer and Beckendorff): how well run is this tournament? A lot of the tournaments I've seen that run both Division B and C end up prioritizing Division C much more than B, so the Division B events end up being poorly run, too easy, written with the wrong rules, or worse (like Cornell Solar System).

Also, what is the competition like? How good are the teams besides Beckendorff and Kraemer? Our first priority is going to a competition that is the best run, but we also want it to be competitive too. Is there any possibility that the date for Division B changes? Right now it's early in the season.

Lastly, how easy is it to get to UT from the airport? Travelling to Cornell for Nationals was a pain and took hours and we'd prefer to attend a tournament that's more accessible.

Thanks,
frostedflakes

I'm a student at OTHS, where we attend UT regularly.
UT is a very well run invitational, and has good quality tests in the most case, as can be seen on their website under the resources section http://atxscioly.com/resources.html (also they were the only invitational we attended to actually use tuber for protein modeling instead of just forgoing the on site build or just using pipe cleaner!!!)
I'm personally in C division, but I don't feel that C division is prioritized over B division, with some tests even being written for both.
The organization and planning is well done, and the site is nice.

Competition, at least in C div, usually ends up with SLHS (with some Clements and not much LASA - LASA usually only brings its full force to regionals, state, etc.) fighting with other out of state nats levels team, with some ranks being taken by other local Texas schools such as OTHS and SFA.
I can't be sure if this reflects competition in B div, where Beckendorff is much more dominant than SLHS, but I should imagine that it boils down to the same mix of Beckendorff competing against out of state nats level teams and with a few local Texas schools such as Tays or SLJH taking a couple ranks here and there.

All in all I'd highly recommend going.

[Riptide]

To anyone who has attended before how well run is this tournament?

A1

[Adi1008]

I'm a captain of a Division B team that placed in the top 10 at Nationals this year (want to remain anonymous since nothing is confirmed) and we are thinking about attending the UT invitational in the fall.

To anyone who has attended before (particularly Kraemer and Beckendorff): how well run is this tournament? A lot of the tournaments I've seen that run both Division B and C end up prioritizing Division C much more than B, so the Division B events end up being poorly run, too easy, written with the wrong rules, or worse (like Cornell Solar System).

Also, what is the competition like? How good are the teams besides Beckendorff and Kraemer? Our first priority is going to a competition that is the best run, but we also want it to be competitive too. Is there any possibility that the date for Division B changes? Right now it's early in the season.

Lastly, how easy is it to get to UT from the airport? Travelling to Cornell for Nationals was a pain and took hours and we'd prefer to attend a tournament that's more accessible.

Thanks,
frostedflakes

Hey there! Others (Umaroth, JoeyC, and Riptide) have already answered many of your questions, but I'll add on to them a bit.

As a former Division B competitor at nationals myself (I competed for Beckendorff the years we got 1st and 2nd at nationals), I can completely understand your frustration with poorly run events, laughably easy tests, and more, even at "elite" tournaments. Many of the other members of our Science Olympiad organization competed in Division B and still have very strong ties to those schools, so we work especially hard to give back to the Division B community as well as the Division C one. This culture of wanting to deliver a good tournament to Division B extends to everyone in our organization, including our officers - personally, I wrote the Solar System test, co-wrote the Density Lab test, and helped run Game On at our recent regional.

Nearly all of our Division B events are being run by experienced Science Olympiad alumni, most of whom are national medalists in them (or a related event). Many of our events in Division B are being run by MIT event supervisors, USNCO High Honors Recipients, and even students we've specifically recruited from other universities! On top of that, we'll also have an Exam Review Committee consisting of over a dozen members from universities over the entire country that look over all of our tests before they're printed. If you (or anyone else) are interested in knowing specifics on who our event supervisors are, feel free to PM me.

The competition at UT is somewhat top-heavy, but still quite strong. Beckendorff (4th place at nationals), Kraemer (6th place at nationals), and Kealing (19th place at nationals) are formidable competition for any team. Bonham MS and Austin Area Homeschoolers narrowly missed nationals; I expect them to be just as good as Kealing. If you want more national-level teams to attend, I recommend contacting other top schools and coordinating with them, similar to how many Division C teams decided to go to Penn over MIT this year.

I do not anticipate changing the date for our tournament this year or moving our invitational tournament into the spring anytime soon. Here are the two reasons why:

1. We consider the early date to be an advantage. When I competed, my team had the mentality that if you wanted to be the best, you had to start working harder earlier than everyone else. I'd work on my events throughout the entire summer and used the UT Invitational as a benchmark for my progress and to make sure I was on track to be one of the best in the country. It's possible to do this without going to an early competition, but having an actual tournament that you must be ready for forces people to work hard and hold each other accountable. If you are part of a team that's looking to take the next step, then you have nothing to lose and everything to gain from coming to an early competition like ours.
2. Running our invitational in the spring is not feasible due to our regional. People complain about poorly run events a lot, especially at regional or state tournaments. Often, these competitions are trying their best, but lack the manpower and/or funding to find enough event supervisors, resulting in them running only a fraction of events. Most teams that compete in Science Olympiad don't go to invitationals, so regionals are their only exposure to the activity. Holding a well-run regional in Central Texas with all of the events (including all the state trial events and the national event conflicts) is one of the way we try to give back to the Science Olympiad community, particularly for less-experienced teams in the Austin area. We will not sacrifice this so that we can run a bigger or more popular invitational for elite teams.

Lastly, Umaroth is correct - UT is about a 10-20 minute drive from the airport, depending on traffic. You can also use public transportation to get to the campus (as many teams do).

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!

[frostedflakes]

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A1

...If you (or anyone else) are interested in knowing specifics on who our event supervisors are, feel free to PM me....

Thank you for the help (and sorry for the late reply)! While nothing is still confirmed, we're looking a lot more likely to attend now. Also, I'm curious about the event supervisors. Will you fly in event supervisors like MIT does for Division C?

[Adi1008]

...

...

A1

...If you (or anyone else) are interested in knowing specifics on who our event supervisors are, feel free to PM me....

Thank you for the help (and sorry for the late reply)! While nothing is still confirmed, we're looking a lot more likely to attend now. Also, I'm curious about the event supervisors. Will you fly in event supervisors like MIT does for Division C?

Glad to hear it! I think you and your team will have a phenomenal experience if you decide to attend.

To answer your question, no, we do not fly in event supervisors like MIT does; however, many people from other universities are writing tests for our events that will be proctored by volunteers from UT. There are a couple reasons for this; allow me to explain the biggest one:

We're lucky to have some extremely good event supervisors who attend UT or are in the Austin area, ranging from experienced alumni to National Event Supervisors themselves. You brought up the MIT Invitational - seven of MIT's event supervisors were students attending UT, the most out of any non-MIT school. Ultimately, we feel as if the money needed to fly out a talented event supervisor (e.g. someone like windu34) is better spent on our outreach activities, which has a much bigger impact on individual teams compared to a slight increase in event quality for a few events.