Why are these events?

[Giantpants]

I’ve always kinda wondered about bottle rocket, especially outdoors, I’ve felt like it leaves a lot up to chance. Especially when there was an egg involved with getting tiered at stake. But I never did it so maybe I’m wrong...?

[gz839918]

ping pong parachute, end of story

Well at least it doesn't take much time to make a device for it...

Fermi Questions is definitely worse, since you have to waste your time memorizing a ton of random numbers that have no practical application

Approximate estimates are essential to understanding the magnitude of some phenomenon, and in the social sciences, these are indispensable. Knowing the number of people affected by hiring discrimination, calculating how many court cases result in false positive convictions, or determining how many dollars are needed to fund a city revitalization program are all helpful for sizing up how big a problem is, or how easy it is to launch a solution. You're certainly right that it's poorly connected to what we usually do in SciOly, but the skills in Fermi Questions are useful, even if some questions may be very much out-of-left-field (I, too, have little use for finding the probability an electron will tunnel to the moon hehe).

When you mention bad events, you don't just leave out WIDI, Game On, Mystery Architecture, Fast Facts, Picture This, etc. Just saying...

So basically inquiry events=bad.

Of course, some events are less applicable to the body of science at large even if they are somewhat applicable, like Game On or WIDI. As CookiePie1 justifiably points out, they do have applications, although I would say such events are still limited in scope of applicability even though their practicality is greater than none. Even so, I would say they are worthwhile events to keep in the SciOly cycle because some, like Fast Facts and Picture This, are fun in an intellectual way, and they make us think more deeply about science, despite their low applicability.

In case anybody is curious about whether certain events (not just inquiry) will be actually useful, it's worth noting that Benjamin Franklin felt that electricity was one of the most useless fields of science, one where the only practical application of studying electricity was for lightning rods (after all, lightbulbs still had a century to come). Yet today, hardly would we doubt that circuit lab is amongst the most applicable events. We don't always know what will become useful in the future, and intellectual fun could take on a life of its own.

[dxu46]

When you mention bad events, you don't just leave out WIDI, Game On, Mystery Architecture, Fast Facts, Picture This, etc. Just saying...

So basically inquiry events=bad.

Not really, fermi and code are good events. Experimental is also pretty good, IMO

[PM2017]

ping pong parachute, end of story

Well at least it doesn't take much time to make a device for it...

Fermi Questions is definitely worse, since you have to waste your time memorizing a ton of random numbers that have no practical application

Late to the party, but I have always been of the opinion that the skills learned in Fermi are the most applicable of any scioly event. While yes, you won’t need to know how long it takes a snail to go to the andromeda galaxy, the ability to quickly reason through things, and make connections is one of the most powerful problem solving tools one can have. In STEM fields the ability to effectively estimate values -- even to a single order of magnitude -- is quite helpful. Obviously, there are many events that pertain directly to a specific field, and people can learn a lot from those events, but events like Fermi are very universally useful.

The memorization isn’t the crux of Fermi -- it’s the ability to use value that you have some confidence about to get a rough estimate of another number. It’s like when people argue that math is useless. Perhaps you won’t need to know how to solve indefinite integrals, or know how to find the prime factorization of some inane number in your daily life, but those aren’t the benefits anyways. The benefits are in process of problem solving you learn with practice. The specific “useless” applications are just the vehicle to get to that level of thinking. Similarly the actual absurd problems that fermi gives are just the vehicle, not the end goal.

I think inquiries are probably some of the most important events. Even Game On wasn't about the Scratch. It was about the coding logic. the hardest part of programming isn't the actual language -- it's the logic. Anyone can learn Python syntax, or C++, or Scratch, but the biggest gain is the logic behind the programming.

[harsimranjeet]

XPD and WIDI are probably the best inquiry events imo. Fermi is good too, since estimation is a hard skill and it's an important one to have.

I think the main thing is that most of these events are fun. Even if they aren't as applicable to the greater world of science as something like say, Chem Lab, people enjoy doing them. That's why XPD and WIDI have been run every single year Science Olympiad has existed. They build important skills like communication, and they're also super fun.

[UTF-8 U+6211 U+662F]

ping pong parachute, end of story

Well at least it doesn't take much time to make a device for it...

Fermi Questions is definitely worse, since you have to waste your time memorizing a ton of random numbers that have no practical application

Late to the party, but I have always been of the opinion that the skills learned in Fermi are the most applicable of any scioly event. While yes, you won’t need to know how long it takes a snail to go to the andromeda galaxy, the ability to quickly reason through things, and make connections is one of the most powerful problem solving tools one can have. In STEM fields the ability to effectively estimate values -- even to a single order of magnitude -- is quite helpful. Obviously, there are many events that pertain directly to a specific field, and people can learn a lot from those events, but events like Fermi are very universally useful.

The memorization isn’t the crux of Fermi -- it’s the ability to use value that you have some confidence about to get a rough estimate of another number. It’s like when people argue that math is useless. Perhaps you won’t need to know how to solve indefinite integrals, or know how to find the prime factorization of some inane number in your daily life, but those aren’t the benefits anyways. The benefits are in process of problem solving you learn with practice. The specific “useless” applications are just the vehicle to get to that level of thinking. Similarly the actual absurd problems that fermi gives are just the vehicle, not the end goal.

I think inquiries are probably some of the most important events. Even Game On wasn't about the Scratch. It was about the coding logic. the hardest part of programming isn't the actual language -- it's the logic. Anyone can learn Python syntax, or C++, or Scratch, but the biggest gain is the logic behind the programming.

It's worth noting though that Scratch has a substantially different paradigm than any other programming language I know; personally, I'd prefer if the language were something that looked like Python with optional block dragging for stuff if you want it, but that's just me.

[cool hand luke]

Warning, grumpy old man rant ahead.

Widi is very needed. I hire a half dozen engineers just out of school each year and by and large the candidates written communication skills are really poor, something like widi is great at developing these skills.

Also I love mystery architecture. IF the prompt is well written then it shows who has an innate knack for engineering like nothing else.

[DatSciolyBoi]

When you mention bad events, you don't just leave out WIDI, Game On, Mystery Architecture, Fast Facts, Picture This, etc. Just saying...

CHILD, ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY INSULT THE MYSTERY ARCHITECTURE

[Name]

Late to the party, but I have always been of the opinion that the skills learned in Fermi are the most applicable of any scioly event. While yes, you won’t need to know how long it takes a snail to go to the andromeda galaxy, the ability to quickly reason through things, and make connections is one of the most powerful problem solving tools one can have. In STEM fields the ability to effectively estimate values -- even to a single order of magnitude -- is quite helpful. Obviously, there are many events that pertain directly to a specific field, and people can learn a lot from those events, but events like Fermi are very universally useful.

The memorization isn’t the crux of Fermi -- it’s the ability to use value that you have some confidence about to get a rough estimate of another number. It’s like when people argue that math is useless. Perhaps you won’t need to know how to solve indefinite integrals, or know how to find the prime factorization of some inane number in your daily life, but those aren’t the benefits anyways. The benefits are in process of problem solving you learn with practice. The specific “useless” applications are just the vehicle to get to that level of thinking. Similarly the actual absurd problems that fermi gives are just the vehicle, not the end goal.

I think inquiries are probably some of the most important events. Even Game On wasn't about the Scratch. It was about the coding logic. the hardest part of programming isn't the actual language -- it's the logic. Anyone can learn Python syntax, or C++, or Scratch, but the biggest gain is the logic behind the programming.

Obviously the ability to reason and estimate is a important skill, and a part of fermi, but I'd disagree that it's the main point of fermi, and that memorization is the main point. I feel like the majority of compititions have mostly fact recall questions, with maybe a unit conversion or something. These questions tend to show up over and over again on other practice tests, so once you memorized the commonly occuring facts, most questions are an instant solve. Your estimations and reasoning is mostly common sense from facts you already know. For example if you have memorized that the US energy consumption is 1.4E19 J and you need to estimate the world energy consumption you know the value is not less then 1.4E19 and not that much greater (its 5.67E20). Without memorized facts, your estimation is probably gonna be way off, and even with them, your estimation is probably gonna be slightly off, which would throw off your answer (without memorizing 5.67E20, I probably would've estimated under 5). Memorizing as many facts as possible is (in my opinion) the best way to study.

Some questions aren't just memorization, where they ask about some really weird fact that nobody would've probably memorized (probably just questions that aren't from other tests), or long and multistep problems requiring extensive thinking and reasoning, but I don't see those questions that often. I feel like tests should include some harder questions that require more reasoning (kinda like second part of 2018's princeton test), that is more then just knowing a fact.

[EastStroudsburg13]

Not adding any specific opinions about certain events, but I think, with any event, you have to consider both a) the overall intent of the event, and b) how well it rewards competitors for grasping that intent. Some events with great intents end up being much less effective in practice (Sumo Bots comes to mind).