Duke University Invitational 2019

dukescioly
Member
Member
Posts: 12
Joined: June 21st, 2018, 8:31 am
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 11 times

Duke University Invitational 2019

Post by dukescioly »

We are super excited to announce that the FIRST ever Duke University Science Olympiad Invitational will most likely be on January 19, 2019! Registration will open 12:00 AM ET on Friday September 14, 2018, and more information + updates can be found on our new website at https://dukescioly.org.

The tournament will run all 23 Division C national events including a few trial events. Tests will be written by experienced alumni at Duke and former Science Olympiad competitors from the highest level of competition. Coaches will not be required to write tests or volunteer.

Any team can register up to 3 teams and registration is on a first-come first-serve basis. We are looking to take around 30 teams this year and subsequent teams to register will receive a spot on the waitlist in chronological order. There is a registration fee of $100, with $50 for each additional team. We are working on obtaining discounts for hotels and lodging near Duke University’s campus.

While not rushing to events or doing some last minute studying, competitors can explore Duke Gardens, the Nasher Art Museum, and grab food at the new award-winning West Union! We are also working on arranging campus tours for competitors so they get to experience Duke’s beautiful and lively campus (rumor also has it that our awards ceremony might be in the Duke chapel).

We hope to see you at our tournament in January! If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at [email protected] or [email protected].
dukescioly
Member
Member
Posts: 12
Joined: June 21st, 2018, 8:31 am
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 11 times

Re: Duke University Invitational 2019

Post by dukescioly »

Registration for Duke's first ever Science Olympiad Invitational will be opening tomorrow, September 14th at 5:00PM EST! The tournament will be held at Duke University in Durham, NC on January 19th, 2019. You can register at https://goo.gl/forms/7rWufv8bQZtfffci2 or check out our website for more information at https://dukescioly.org

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at [email protected] or [email protected]. Can't wait to see you on Duke's campus in January!
User avatar
Alex-RCHS
Member
Member
Posts: 539
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 3:46 pm
Division: Grad
State: NC
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Duke University Invitational 2019

Post by Alex-RCHS »

Good luck to all teams competing tomorrow!
About me!
Raleigh Charter HS (NC) 2018
UNC-Chapel Hill 2022
User avatar
winchesetr
Member
Member
Posts: 31
Joined: May 6th, 2014, 7:28 am
Division: Grad
State: PA
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Duke University Invitational 2019

Post by winchesetr »

Thanks so much to everyone who showed out today!! I was the proctor for Disease - if you have any questions on the event feel free to email me (its in the packet!!) or message message me on here!!

If you have any feedback on exams also feel free to post here as well. Hope to see some of y’all at SOUP (I wrote DD there as well :) ) !!!!
I like soup.

Harriton High School Class of 2017


SOUP Disease Detectives 2018-Present
DUSO Disease Detectives 2019-Present
User avatar
antoine_ego
Exalted Member
Exalted Member
Posts: 387
Joined: May 24th, 2016, 5:37 pm
Division: Grad
State: MA
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Duke University Invitational 2019

Post by antoine_ego »

Full results for convenience: here.

1. Enloe A (93)
2. NCSSM A (105)
3. Fairfax A (163)
4. TJHSST B (166)
5. TJHSST A (177)
6. TJHSST C (178)
Rest in Peace Len Joeris
[b]2016 Air Trajectory Nationals - 3rd
2018 Hovercraft Nationals - 6th
2018 Mousetrap Nationals - 6th
2018 Nationals - Team 9th Place!
2019 Astronomy Nationals - 3rd!
2019 Nationals - Team 9th Place!
[/b]
Acton-Boxborough Regional High School Captain 17-19
User avatar
Alex-RCHS
Member
Member
Posts: 539
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 3:46 pm
Division: Grad
State: NC
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Duke University Invitational 2019

Post by Alex-RCHS »

I hope everyone enjoyed Designer Genes today!

Overall, scores were about what I expected. I'm not sure what I'm allowed to post online in terms of raw scores, but the highest teams were around 70%. I hope to publish the test and key online, but I need to check with DUSO first. If anyone has questions about the test, feel free to message me.

Multiple choice and T/F scores were pretty good. Scores on the free response overall were rather low, but they helped differentiate the higher teams.

Scores on the plasmid cloning question were very low. I think only one team got full credit on the question about ASRGL1 insertion. It needs to be placed within the GFP Gene. Placing it outside the gene doesn't help at all. Any GFP-producing colonies would have a plasmid in them, yes, but we wouldn't be able to tell if the plasmid was correctly altered (recombinant) or just one of the original plasmids that was not successfully altered. And besides, we already have a way of distinguishing the transformed from the non-transformed: the antibiotic media. Rather, the ASRGL1 gene must be inserted inside the GFP gene, so that any colonies NOT producing GFP would have the recombinant plasmid (you know they have the plasmid because they survived the antibiotics, and you know it's the right plasmid because the GFP is knocked out).

Scores on the Mirabilis japonica questions were a little better. A lot of people got most of the points for correctly identifying that the inheritance is cytoplasmic/extranuclear. But I think only one or two got full credit for correctly identifying that leaf color is a trait coded for by the chloroplast. Not all cytoplasmic traits are mitochondrially inherited.

Scores on the Arabinose question were low too, but better than the plasmid one. Nobody correctly identified that the location of the two parts of the operator meant that the binding of the repressor forms a DNA loop, which is the specific mechanism by which RNA polymerase is blocked from binding the promoter. However, many teams got partial credit.
Last edited by Alex-RCHS on January 20th, 2019, 4:15 am, edited 2 times in total.
About me!
Raleigh Charter HS (NC) 2018
UNC-Chapel Hill 2022
musicalwhang
Member
Member
Posts: 39
Joined: February 26th, 2017, 11:33 am
Division: C
State: NC
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Duke University Invitational 2019

Post by musicalwhang »

Overall, the DUSO put together a very good invitational! Alex, I think we shared a homeroom together as I was on the CHHS team. I wanted to ask how well your boomilever did because I think I saw you test it but never got the chance to ask. Ours weighed 8.64 g and held 7.122 kg. That was only 4th place. I am particularly interested in the NCSSM boomi designs as well and how they scored so well. Did you get a chance to see them at all?
User avatar
Alex-RCHS
Member
Member
Posts: 539
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 3:46 pm
Division: Grad
State: NC
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Duke University Invitational 2019

Post by Alex-RCHS »

musicalwhang wrote:Overall, the DUSO put together a very good invitational! Alex, I think we shared a homeroom together as I was on the CHHS team. I wanted to ask how well your boomilever did because I think I saw you test it but never got the chance to ask. Ours weighed 8.64 g and held 7.122 kg. That was only 4th place. I am particularly interested in the NCSSM boomi designs as well and how they scored so well. Did you get a chance to see them at all?
Haha, I'm no longer a competitor, but the person doing Boomilever for RCHS is also named Alex.
About me!
Raleigh Charter HS (NC) 2018
UNC-Chapel Hill 2022
Jdhfh_Study
Member
Member
Posts: 2
Joined: February 16th, 2015, 8:17 am
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Duke University Invitational 2019

Post by Jdhfh_Study »

Congrats to all the winners!

My only minor gripe was the Anatomy test had no diseases whatsoever but I thought the other tests were really well made (especially that fossils test, that 2-minute time cap for 10 questions almost had me).
Carnage MS Varsity: R/S/N
DD: 1/6/29, Green Gen: 1/1/29, Fossils: 3/10/29

3-year hiatus...
Cary Academy JV1: Duke/R/S(hopefully?)
Fossils:3/1/-
DP:5/1/-
Anat:10/1/-
Astro:9/2/-
User avatar
daydreamer0023
Member
Member
Posts: 198
Joined: January 29th, 2015, 5:44 pm
Division: Grad
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Duke University Invitational 2019

Post by daydreamer0023 »

I'm really glad that Duke finally got around to holding a tournament this year and I really did enjoy it. It was fairly well-run as a whole, which was helpful for competitors, though there were several instances of events running overtime (some up to twenty minutes if I recall correctly). That being said, I noticed a couple things regarding quality in the running of the events themselves.

Some of the events were well-supervised by the reports of my teammates. Others, not quite so much. I'll only speak to the events I attended, which were Protein Modeling and Forensics.

Protein was fairly well-run. The stations were nicely set up with plenty of space and the supervisors were helpful and knowledgeable. Since the event came with the standard invitationals test provided by the organization that sponsors the event. The main problem I had was the inconsistency of grading of the test, where there were scoring discrepancies between two of our teams that could have resulted in a difference of placement.

Forensics was another story. We waited for several minutes (probably a gross underestimation) into the time block before we were let in. We were then told that we had 35 minutes to take a 50 minute test - they didn't tell us it was supposed to be 50 minutes initially, though the test packet was an indicator of this. I didn't really realize that time had been shortened until they gave us a one minute warning (which, by the way, was the only time warning they gave), which was mostly because I was distracted by the fact that we had alcohol burners instead of Bunsen burners and that HCl and NaOH would be supplied at a separate station instead of at a team's workspace - two things I wasn't expecting to see. The alcohol burners threw me the most - I couldn't distinguish between Calcium Nitrate and Magnesium Sulfate for the life of me in an orange flame (or maybe I'm just incompetent) and had to squint hard to see if there were any flame colors at all. My partner also noted that the solutions for plastic density testing may have been contaminated (a pretty common occurrence for even the most experienced Forensics supervisors) and that there wasn't an isopropyl alcohol solution as is typically used in my experience (this latter part isn't too much of a problem, though it certainly was different). I also don't remember the plastic solution containers being labelled as to which were which, though my memory may have been faulty on that one. The test material and format was similar to Nationals - not particularly difficult but had a lot of questions - but I couldn't get to the analysis at all due to the time constraint, much less pace myself properly to account for said time constraint. I'm not particularly fond of this format type, as I prefer more insightful questions on topics to generic trivia when it comes to additional questions, but that wasn't the biggest deal. Still, it doesn't particularly strike me well when one of the questions is "which one of the tested powders is commonly known as table salt."

I understand that the time change for Forensics was likely due to setup/time issues with the first block, but 35 minutes is never enough to a test of that size, even if you could clean up later unlike Nationals. Also, such a situation should have not come up in the first place. I also understand that there was probably an issue finding an outlet for Bunsen burners, but providing pictures or videos of said flame tests (even if it may take away from testing a competitor's ability to do a flame test) would be better in my opinion. I know Forensics is an extremely hard event to set up, but I wasn't particularly satisfied with the experience I received. A good effort was made, I will acknowledge, but there are things to fix.

Overall, not a bad tournament, especially for an inaugural. Hopefully, Duke can straighten out the most of the quirks next year.
"I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale." - Marie Curie

Enloe '19 || UNC Chapel Hill '23

See resources I helped create here!
Post Reply

Return to “2019 Invitationals”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest