Pennsylvania 2021

[alip26]

Does anyone have the list for the amount of teams that qualify for states by region this year?

[nendawen]

Info on States and Regionals
States
The PASO Board met on 1/18 to discuss the State tournament. We will have a two-level tournament for both Division B and C. There will be medals and trophies for both levels. The tournament will be a Mini Satellite Hybrid just like Regionals. The plan is as follows.
Division B will have 36 teams (18 from each of the two regions). The top 10 in each region will be designated AAA teams and are competing for medals and trophies and to see who goes to Nationals. The remaining 8 teams in each region will be designated AA teams and are competing for their own set of medals and trophies.
Division C will have 50 teams (12 from each of 3 regions and the SE region gets 14). The top 7 teams (9 in SE) will be designated AAA teams and are competing for medals and trophies and to see who goes to Nationals. The remaining teams in each region will be designated AA teams and are competing for their own set of medals and trophies.
New this year is an extra fee to participate in States. Each team will have to pay a $50 fee to attend states. This helps to cover the cost of the expansion. This fee must be received three weeks after announcing the eligible teams.
Our hope is to continue this expanded format in the future.
Regionals
We also are announcing that we will have limited medals for the alternate teams participating in Regionals. We will give medals to 1st place teams in Division B (300 team numbers) and 1st and 2nd place medals to teams in Division C (500 team numbers).

[EastStroudsburg13]

As much as I dislike the idea of reducing the number of regional tournaments to this extent, I am massively in favor of these changes made to the state tournament. Having a two-level tournament is a tremendous idea, and it is my position that all states should strive to have some form of multi-level state tournament. Add in the fact that more C Division teams are qualifying, and I could not support this plan more.

[Unome]

For comparison, the largest B regional in a typical year was Southeast. In 2019 and 2020, they had 23 teams. This year, the regionals are 27 and 25 teams, respectively. How does this make any sense in a year like this?

Typically I am in pretty solid lockstep with PASO, but I could not disagree more with how regionals are being run this year. It was a perfect year to give extra recognition to the teams that are sticking it out to compete. Artificially making the regionals larger than they need to be does not accomplish anything tangible, and only hurts the mid/low-tier teams. My only hope is that once we return to a conventional climate, we will return to the old system, which was pretty balanced and one of the best regional arrangements I have seen in the nation.

If there's some major factor I'm overlooking, I would love to hear it.

The major factor is probably acquiring as many event supervisors, or just people in general to administer the tests in the case of PA. We're seeing that a bit in GA.

Wouldn't having the tournaments all be simultaneous, virtual, and using the same tests reduce the demand for supervisors/judges? I guess I am not completely familiar with the administration of tournaments on Scilympiad.

Oh, I misinterpreted you. Yeah, I'm not sure why. My best guess is that it was for easier management - Scilympiad is a pretty finicky system to work with.

Re:demand for supervisors/judges, it's down, but supply is down more - you can recoup some of that by leveraging people in other states, but most of the "vast fleet" of more casual event supervisors seems to have pretty much disappeared - we're reliant mainly on regulars here in Georgia.

[nendawen]

All test for PA regional tests will be written and graded by PA SciOly State supervisors.

The tournament will be run statewide simultaneously and then the tests scores will be separated by region.

[lavarball]

SOAPS Invitational is coming up and I really wanted to do something special at the beginning of the awards ceremony. I decided that I want to make a compilation of videos where people explain why they love Science Olympiad. I competed in science Olympiad for multiple years, and each year I would realize more and more of why I love it and why I continue it. It would be nice to see why everyone else loves Science Olympiad, so if possible, please look at these instructions https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ehi ... H2Uc0/edit, and help us out. I would like these to be in within the next two days so we have time to put them all together. Thank you!

[LolTornado]

Any thoughts on Solon Results?

[axolotl]

Hello hello! Just wanted to pop in and let y'all know that Pitt is hosting a Division B tournament with tests written by science olympiad alum. Since it's our first year, the tournament will be pretty chill and there is currently a super super small registration fee so any middle schools (even if you don't have a full team, we all gotta start from somewhere) looking for some practice before regionals/states are welcome to join!!! Register at scilympiad.com/pa-pitt and hope to see you there

[LolTornado]

Anyone have any predictions for regs this yr given they all start in less then a month?

[MorningCoffee]

So does anyone know how many teams will be making it to states this year, since they are combining regionals?